Union Home Minister Amit Shah delivered a powerful speech at Dharmatala in the heart of Kolkata Wednesday (November 29) and sounded the bugle for next year’s electoral battle. 

In his signature style, Shah tore into Trinamool chairperson Mamata Banerjee, accusing her of corruption, misgovernance, appeasement and ruining Bengal. 

Shah’s rally was significant not only because of what he said, but also because of some other reasons:

The Bengal BJP organised the rally at the exact spot where the Trinamool Congress holds its flagship event–the July 21 Martyr’s Day rally where the entire Trinamool leadership gathers to hear Mamata Banerjee deliver her address. 

The annual July 21 rally in front of the landmark ‘Victoria House’ (headquarters of CESC, a private power generation and supply company) and a few metres from the 19th century Tipu Sultan Masjid (built by despotic ruler’s son), is organised in memory of the 13 Youth Congress workers who were gunned down by the police on July 21, 1993. 

Banerjee, who was a Youth Congress leader then, had given a call for that rally to demand that voter ID cards be made the sole document for voting in all elections in Bengal. 

Hundreds of Youth Congress leaders, including Banerjee, were injured in police action that day. 

Since then, Mamata Banerjee has held this rally in front of Victoria House and a few metres away from the Dharmatala crossing–inarguably the busiest traffic intersection in Kolkata–every year. 

It is the biggest rally of the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee usually unveils major political plans from the stage at this rally. 

No other political party in the state has held, or been allowed to hold, any event at this spot. 

The Trinamool Congress holds a sort of proprietorial right over this venue. 

By choosing this very venue for Amit Shah’s rally, the Bengal BJP has, in a uniquely imaginative manner, cocked a snook at the Trinamool’s political hegemony and sent a powerful message to the people of the state: that the BJP is a match for the Trinamool. 

The Trinamool got the Kolkata Police to deny permission to the BJP for the rally at that venue. The police suggested other venues, including the nearby Maidan, where large political rallies are usually held.

But the state BJP leadership was intent on this venue and approached the Calcutta High Court.

On November 20, a single-judge bench of the HC comprising Justice Rajsekhar Mantha pulled up the Kolkata Police for denying permission to the BJP’s rally and allowed the BJP’s plea.

The state government challenged that order before a larger bench headed by Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam. On November 24, with just five days to go for the rally, the HC dismissed the state’s appeal. 

After the Calcutta High Court passed its order (allowing the rally) on November 24, the Bengal BJP was left with just four days (including the weekend) to organise the rally. 

Not only did the state unit have to make arrangements at the venue on a war footing, it also had to activate its units all over the state to get party workers and supporters to the rally. 

The state BJP also had to make the elaborate logistical and other arrangements required to receive, transport and put up the lakhs of rallyists who reached Kolkata at dharamshalas and guest houses in the city. 

Trinamool cadres and the state police tried their best to stop rallyists from coming into Kolkata by erecting roadblocks on roads and highways leading to Kolkata. 

But at the end of the day, lakhs of people reached the venue of the rally. That was proof of the BJP’s organisational prowess. 

The crowd may have been smaller than what the Trinamool musters for its July 21 rally. But then, the Trinamool has the massive advantage of having a pliant state administration under its thumb, besides possessing huge sums of money and having many benefactors by virtue of it being in power in the state. 

Also, the Trinamool has never faced any challenges like denial of permissions by the police to organise its July 21 rally. 

The Trinamool’s preparations for the July 21 rally start months in advance, and the state BJP leadership got just four days to undertake this onerous task. 

Significantly, in stark contrast to the Trinamool which entices workers and supporters from all over the state with biryani and sightseeing trips to tourist spots in and around Kolkata, the BJP workers and supporters who came in from other parts of the state were provided only sparse vegetarian meals. And there were no pleasure trips organised for them.

Amit Shah’s no-holds-barred speech had its intended consequence: it raised Mamata Banerjee’s heckles and an angry Trinamool reacted with outrage. 

Amit Shah demolished the Trinamool’s narrative about the Union Government depriving Bengal of its dues and quoted statistics to show that over the last ten years, Bengal has received four times the amount of funds from the Centre than it did during the rule of the UPA, of which the Trinamool Congress was a constituent. 

Shah accused the Trinamool of ruining Bengal and harked back to the days when Bengal was a seat of literature, culture, science, entrepreneurship and philosophy, and provided leadership to the nation’s freedom struggle.

Shah’s compelling sentences like “There was a time when strains of melodious Rabindrasangeet used to waft out of Bengal, today the state reverberates to the sound of bomb blasts” and “Mamata Banerjee has besmirched the name of Bengal with her politics of violence” will likely find wide resonance across Bengal. 

Amit Shah did not shy away from launching a direct attack on, and throwing a challenge to, Mamata Banerjee.

Daring her to suspend Trinamool leaders like Partha Chatterjee, Anubrata Mondal and Jyotipriya Mallick who have been arrested for involvement in various scams, Shah said she (Banerjee) wouldn’t dare to do so.

“She prays to Devi Durga everyday so that these leaders don’t name bhatija (nephew, meaning Abhishek Banerjee) as a beneficiary of the scams,” said Shah. 

Shah also referred to the murder of 212 BJP workers and functionaries by Trinamool goons in Bengal. 

“Our karyakartas are closer to our hearts than our own brothers. Didi, remember this. BJP karyakartas of Bengal and the rest of India will avenge those murders through the ballot. You will be thrown out of power,” said Shah. 

The Union Home Minister vowed to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that Mamata Banerjee is vociferously opposed to. 

Amit Shah’s aggressive 23-minute address took the political battle to not just Mamata Banerjee’s doorstep, but to her andarmahal (interiors of her house).