IANS , Kolkata :
A day after India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was routed in the West Bengal by-polls, its state vice president and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose on Friday questioned the
party’s campaign strategy. He said there was no need to highlight the NRC issue and warned the leadership that bringing religion into politics won’t bring dividends.
“Bengal is the land of Swami Vivekananda, Subhas Chandra Bose and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Here one shouldn’t bring religion into politics. Religion has its own place. But if you do politics with religion in Bengal, that won’t be successful,” he said.
The ruling Trinamool Congress won all three seats-Kaliaganj, Karimpur and Kharagpur Sadar-in the by-poll, with the BJP coming second everywhere.
He said despite the party having the spontaneous backing of the people, it drew a blank in the by-polls due to “organisational deficiencies and also because some issues which we highlighted before the people, were actually non-issues.”
Bose said in the present political scenario in Bengal, it would have been better had the party not raised such issues, and instead concentrated on being by the side of the people to understand their problems. He said while the National Register for Citizens was an issue in Assam since 1985, there was never much discussion about it in West Bengal over the years, pointing out home minister and BJP president Amit Shah had categorically said in Kolkata that first the Citizens Amendment Bill will come into effect, and then only will discussions be started on NRC.
A day after India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was routed in the West Bengal by-polls, its state vice president and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose on Friday questioned the
party’s campaign strategy. He said there was no need to highlight the NRC issue and warned the leadership that bringing religion into politics won’t bring dividends.
“Bengal is the land of Swami Vivekananda, Subhas Chandra Bose and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Here one shouldn’t bring religion into politics. Religion has its own place. But if you do politics with religion in Bengal, that won’t be successful,” he said.
The ruling Trinamool Congress won all three seats-Kaliaganj, Karimpur and Kharagpur Sadar-in the by-poll, with the BJP coming second everywhere.
He said despite the party having the spontaneous backing of the people, it drew a blank in the by-polls due to “organisational deficiencies and also because some issues which we highlighted before the people, were actually non-issues.”
Bose said in the present political scenario in Bengal, it would have been better had the party not raised such issues, and instead concentrated on being by the side of the people to understand their problems. He said while the National Register for Citizens was an issue in Assam since 1985, there was never much discussion about it in West Bengal over the years, pointing out home minister and BJP president Amit Shah had categorically said in Kolkata that first the Citizens Amendment Bill will come into effect, and then only will discussions be started on NRC.
