'TMC leaders are 'THIEVES and LOOTERS', throw them out': Suvendu Adhikari tells Bengal BJP workers

Kolkata: West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Friday said that a majority of Trinamool Congress leaders are “thieves and looters” and urged his party's rank and file to wage a united war to dislodge the “corrupt and scam-tainted” TMC government led by Mamata Banerjee.

Adhikari, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, called upon the people of Alipurduar district in north Bengal to join the saffron party's September 13 'Nabanna Abhijan' (march to the secretariat) in large numbers. "The TMC government is steeped in corruption. All its leaders are thieves and looters. Besides the school recruitment scam, they have looted everything from coal to sand,” Adhikari told a rally.

"One TMC leader has been arrested by the CBI in connection with the smuggling of cattle, and another minister is being probed for smuggling coal," he said without naming anyone.

The Bengal BJP leader also claimed that the 'Nabanna Abhijan' will ring in the fall of the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. “The people of Bengal will wage a united war to topple this corrupt dispensation. The ‘Nabanna Abhijan' will be a precursor to that," Adhikari asserted.

Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs John Barla, who was also present at the event, said “one after another TMC heavyweight” is being arrested by central probe agencies in connection with misappropriation of public money and smuggling.” "It is time to wage an all-out war against this undemocratic, corrupt government,” he added.

Reacting to his statement, TMC state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh hit back, alleging that Adhikari had joined the BJP to avoid being hounded by central investigation agencies. Ghosh also said Adhikari was making false allegations to malign the ruling party. "Law will take its own course and we have full faith in the judiciary," he added.