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Updated: Mar 29, 2019 23:04 IST

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will conduct a citizenship screening exercise in Bengal to identify and weed out infiltrators, party president Amit Shah said at a public rally in the north Bengal district of Alipurduars on Friday.

“Will implement National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal to identify and throw out each and every infiltrator from the state. We want to assure each and every Hindu refugee that none has to leave the country. All of you will have a place to live in India with respect. The Citizenship Amendment Bill is our commitment,” said Shah.

Polling will be held in two constituencies Alipurduars and Cooch Behar on April 11 — the first phase of elections.

Shah also took a jibe at the Ma-Mati-Manush slogan of the Trinamool and said that they have gifted mati (land) to infiltrators (from bordering Bangladesh).

Friday’s speech was Shah’s first in the state since the date of elections were announced on March 10.

The BJP boss devoted almost the entire speech in criticising Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her “politics of appeasement”. He said that he had no problem with her decision to pay stipend to imams, but demanded he she should have also done the same for Hindu priests.

Incidentally, imams get the stipend from Wakf board.

“There has to be a limit to appeasement. For madrasa education, she allotted Rs 40 billion (4,000 crore) that exceeds the budget allocation for higher education. Elect Modi and he will flood the place with institutes for making doctors and engineers,” said Shah.

He also alleged that the state government is trying to push Urdu in Bengali medium schools, and pointed out that two of BJP’s workers Tapas Barman and Rajesh Sarkar fell to police bullets in Islampur (of North Dinajpur district) while agitating against recruitment of an Urdu teacher (in a local school) last year.

Shah also took on the Trinamool chief for questioning India’s air strikes against Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack in February.

“Instead of questioning the role of Pakistan, Mamata is questioning the air strikes of India because of her politics of appeasement. She wants to please her vote bank. Mamata does not want that we answer Pakistan. But do not worry. No matter what Mamata and Akhilesh (Yadav) might wish, Modi will always pursue tit-for-tat policy,” Shah said.

Only Modi can save Bengal from Mamata’s misrule, the BJP president said.

“Modi sent Rs 4,349 billion (4,34,9 00 crore) in five years but it did not reach you because Trinamool goons appropriated it,” alleged Shah.

Reacting to his comments, Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said, “We will never allow any NRC exercise in Bengal. They (BJP) want to divide the people on religious and communal lines. We will never allow that to happen.” Chatterjee challenged Shah to win a single seat in the state in the general election.