Kolkata, Sep 27 (IANS): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) working President J.P. Nadda claimed on Friday that the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is staring at defeat and the writing on the wall is clear about the BJP coming to power in the state.
"It's time for you (Mamata) to go. The writing is clearly visible on the wall. She is on her way out. We are on our way in. The ground has slipped from under her feet," Nadda said in his address at a public awareness programme here on the abrogation of Article 370 pertaining to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Nadda came down heavily on the Trinamool Congress supremo for not backing the government's move on abrogation of Article 370 in Parliament for the sake of her "vote bank".
"With deep regret, I would like to ask Mamata if vote bank is more important than the country? Why should you try to take the country to the brink for this? I would like all of you here to ask everybody, shouldn't Article 370 have been repealed?" he asked.
"If it was to be repealed, then why did Mamataji's party oppose it? How can the chair be more important than the country? How can power be more important than the country?" he added.
The BJP is locked in a stiff fight with the ruling Trinamool in West Bengal, which is slated to hold its assembly polls in about 20 months from now.
In the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, the BJP realised a spectacular win, bagging its best ever tally of 18 out of the 42 seats in the state. The saffron outfit had won only two seats five years back. The Trinamool, which had won 34 seats earlier, saw its tally drop to 22 in 2019.
Expressing happiness at a number of parties even outside the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), backing the coalition in the Rajya Sabha last month in the voting on scrapping Article 370, Nadda said: "They put country above everything else".
Banerjee, in contrast, has time and again said she disapproves of the manner in which the Narendra Modi government revoked the Article. "The process of scrapping was wrong," she has said multiple times.
Questioning Banerjee's style of politics, Nadda said: "I want to know from Mamata what sort of politics is this? And where are they trying to take the country? If the country is there, and it remains strong, people will in normal course of things come to power or go out of power."
"When there is no restraint, then Vinaasha Kaale Vipareetha Buddhi (when one's doom approaches, then one's mind, one's intelligence works perversely)".
Noting that Banerjee should have supported the NDA on the Article 370 issue, he said: "She missed the chance. She gave priority to power, votebank over country".
Nadda prophesied that Trinamool would be unable to stop the march of the BJP in Bengal.
"Ask them (Trinamool) why you want to sell off the country and push the country into trouble..they don't have the strength to answer. Similarly, they don't have the strength to stop you (BJP workers)."
Attacking former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Nadda said the document placed by Pakistan in the United Nations opposing the scrapping of Article 370 mentioned his statement.
"Is he (Gandhi) Pakistan's advocate? Is this his patriotism? Is this the nationalism of the Indian National Congress?", he asked.