Abhishek Banerjee Challenges Amit Shah to Contest Against Him, Vows to Quit Politics if Defeated

Kolkata: TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, on Tuesday, threw a challenge to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to contest against him from the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency. Banerjee, considered number two in the TMC after TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, also vowed to retire from active politics if he got defeated by Shah. 

Banerjee said, "If you want Abhishek Banerjee to leave active politics, then I would like you to fulfil any of the three options I am providing you today. You release the state's due of Rs 1,64,000 crore and I will retire within 24 hours. The second option is to release the funds of the PM Awas Yojana," Banerjee said at an election rally for TMC’s Mathurapur candidate Bapi Halder.

"The nomination for the Diamond Harbour constituency is yet to start. The third option: you (Shah) contest from here and defeat me. I will leave politics forever," the party’s national general secretary said.

Responding to the BJP leader’s statement in Memari earlier in the day that TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee wants him to be the next chief minister of West Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee said everyone is not like him (Shah).

"You wish to make your son the BCCI president. Not all are like you. You have never been part of any agitation. You are a person who was jailed. We do not need to learn any moral values and ideology from you," Banerjee said.

The Union home minister’s son Jai Shah is the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

“You are in politics for your benefit. We do not do that. We are in politics to address the cause of the people.”

Mamata afraid of offending her ‘infiltrator’ vote bank: Shah

Shah alleged that Mamata Banerjee did not attend the Ram temple inauguration ceremony in Ayodhya, as she was afraid of offending her “infiltrator vote bank”.

Shah, while addressing a rally at Memari in Purba Bardhaman district, said this Lok Sabha election is about deciding whether people want "parivar raj" or "Ram rajya" in the country.

"For years, people of our country and Ram devotees wanted a Ram temple to be built in Ayodhya. But the Congress, TMC and the communists didn't want it. Invitations for the consecration ceremony were sent to both Mamata didi and her nephew (Abhishek Banerjee), but they did not attend it, as she was afraid that infiltrators, who are her party's vote bank, might get offended," he said.

Banerjee had accused the BJP of trying to politicise a religious event by attempting to put up a "gimmick show" ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

(with PTI inputs)