‘Don’t forget you are working in BJP states’: Suvendu Adhikari’s warning in Bengal

NANDIGRAM: Leader of Opposition in Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari has warned Muslim migrant workers in Nandigram that “they will have to return to the BJP-ruled state” to work after the assembly polls. Adhikari, who said more than 30,000 people from Nandigram were employed in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Odisha, singled out Muslims and said they “cannot afford to make mistakes”. “There are 30,000 migrant workers… In Gujarat, there are 1,100 Muslim youths from Nandigram; 800 in Odisha; 3,300 in Maharashtra. Whose government is there in Odisha? Whose government is there in Maharashtra? Whose government is there in Gujarat? bjpof! Make no mistake! Correct your ways…so that there won’t be any problems after May 4th (counting day). You can put on a threatening look and say ‘Happy Bengal’ but I am writing everything down,” he said. The remarks drew criticism from the TMC. While campaigning, its Nandigram candidate Pabitra Kar said Adhikari’s politics were based solely on “threats and intimidation”. “As an elected representative, it is his duty to make everyone in the constituency live in peace. What he has done is exactly the opposite. But the residents of Nandigram will respond to his threats in the EVM,” Khar told TOI. A Trinamool spokesperson said the party will report the matter to the EC. Meanwhile, an analysis by Kolkata-based public policy research organization Sabal Institute said that 95.5 per cent of the names removed from the SIR electoral roll in Nandigram were Muslims, even though they constituted about 25 per cent of the constituency’s population. The report said only 4.5% of those purged were non-Muslims.