Raj, J'khand next on cards: Bengal BJP leader after Maha govt change

With Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde cementing his grip on power five days after assuming office with BJPs support, ousting the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, senior West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Monday hinted that opposition-ruled states such as Rajasthan and Jharkhand are next on the cards.He also exuded confidence that his party will form the next government in West Bengal with more than 200 seats in the 294-member House.

With Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde cementing his grip on power five days after assuming office with BJP's support, ousting the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, senior West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Monday hinted that opposition-ruled states such as Rajasthan and Jharkhand are next on the cards.

He also exuded confidence that his party will form the next government in West Bengal with more than 200 seats in the 294-member House. ''You all have seen what has happened in Maharashtra. It will not be the last. A similar thing will happen in Jharkhand; we will change the government soon. Rajasthan too would meet the same fate; we will win the assembly polls there when it is held next year,'' Adhikari said while addressing a rally at Katwa in Purba Bardhaman district.

The Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal wondered what was in store for the TMC government in the state.

''Let's see what's in store for West Bengal. Nothing will go unaccounted for. We all know the atrocities the BJP workers have faced in the state. Have faith in yourselves; we would form the next government with more than 200 seats in the state,'' he said.

Adhikari had recently said the TMC-led dispensation in West Bengal, too, will meet a similar fate just like in Maharashtra, and much before its tenure ends.

His comments had then drawn sharp criticism from the TMC, which accused the BJP of engineering the rebellion in Shiv Sena.

Speaking on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's remarks that opposition parties might have considered backing NDA's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, a tribal leader of the saffron party from Odisha, had the BJP discussed with them before fielding her, Adhikari said the TMC supremo is trying to make a volte-face sensing the imminent defeat of opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.

''This is nothing new; in 2012, too, she had done a similar thing when Pranab Mukherjee was UPA's presidential candidate. Despite being a partner in the UPA government, she had initially declined to support him but later made a U-turn and extended her support after the names she had proposed had declined to contest. This time too, after sensing defeat of her candidate, she is trying to make a U-turn,'' he said.

Hitting out at Adhikari, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said the BJP is yet to come to terms with last year's Assembly poll defeat and seems ready to go to any extent to seize power.

''Despite a high-pitched poll campaign, the BJP lost miserably in the elections. Now, they want to capture power by hook or crook. The comment proves how BJP was behind the political crisis in the western state,'' he said.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday comfortably won a crucial confidence vote in the state assembly, cementing his grip on power five days after assuming office with the BJP support following a revolt in the Shiv Sena.

He said the rebellion led by him last month was a fallout of the ''unfair treatment'' meted out to him, an apparent reference to his decades-old association with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.