Kolkata: The BJP and its leaders had feared the worst if the party failed to remove the Trinamool Congress (TMC) from power in West Bengal.
Winning the April Assembly polls – for the first time in West Bengal — was absolutely crucial for the saffron party, which had maintained that TMC’s 15-year rule had destroyed the state.
Even Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari was contemplating shifting his aged parents to BJP-ruled state Odisha in case Mamata Banerjee’s party won a fourth successive term.
“This time the people of this state have saved West Bengal. Otherwise, it is unimaginable what our condition would have been,” Suvendu said during an event at the National Library, where RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale was also present.
“My father is 90 years old, and my mother is over 80. I was prepared to fight and, if there had been an adverse result, to go to jail. But I had been preparing to send those two (parents) to Odisha,” Suvendu revealed.
Suvendu’s father Sisir Kumar Adhikari is a veteran politician and former state minister. The Adhikaris, from Contai in East Midnapore district, were earlier with TMC.
Debjit Sarkar, BJP’s chief spokesperson in Bengal, said that the situation would have been similar for lakhs of people in the state.
“Suvendu Adhikari spoke about the real situation. However, it was true not only for him, but also for lakhs of people who would have had to become refugees once again,” said Sarkar.
BJP won 208 seats in the 294-member Assembly for a resounding victory.