BJP's fight in Bengal not against Muslims but to improve their living conditions: New state unit chief

Kolkata, July 3 (IANS) The BJP’s fight in West Bengal will not be against Muslims but rather to improve their living conditions, the newly elected state unit party chief Samik Bhattacharya said on Thursday, soon after his name was officially announced for the chair.

It was clear on Wednesday that Bhattacharya, also a party Rajya Sabha member, would be the next state party president in West Bengal since he was the only one to file his nomination for the chair.

On Thursday, his name was officially announced as the new party state president BJP’s central election observer for West Bengal, Ravi Shankar Prasad, who also handed him over the certificate of being elected as the state party president.

“Our fight is not against the Muslims. Rather we are fighting for you. We want the youths from your community to pick up books shunning stones. We want to replace the swords in their hands with pens. This is BJP’s aim and we will do that,” Bhattacharya said while addressing the media persons after his name was announced as the new state party president.

Speaking on the occasion, he also stressed that his goal was to establish an air of communal harmony in the state.

“Our goal is to achieve a time when the two processions, the first for Durga Puja idol immersion and the second for Muharram, will move on the same road without any sort of tension. There will be no communal division. The concept of pluralism will be protected in Bengal at any cost. The Muslim youths will only listen to the poems by Kazi Nazrul Islam and not the narratives of the terrorists,” Bhattacharya said.

Speaking on the occasion, he also accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the ruling Trinamool Congress of misleading the Muslim population by projecting an imaginary and well-crafted false sense of fear about BJP.

“The next generation will have to decide what they would like to do. Those who do not want to vote for use, they might not do that. But remember, of those who were killed in violence in West Bengal in the recent past, 90 per cent were Muslims. We want to free West Bengal from this situation,” said Bhattacharya.

--IANS

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