Hours ahead of phase four voting in West Bengal, senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said on Sunday that if the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is not removed from power soon, the state would "become like Jammu and Kashmir" in the face of threats from terrorist organisations like ISIS.
The BJP leader, known for making controversial statements in the past as well, said that West Bengal would become the next Jammu and Kashmir. Mr Vijayvargiya hit out at Mamata Banerjee, saying her "appeasement politics" is the reason why terrorists have been able to establish their base in the state.
"The threat of ISIS coming to Bengal has taken us by surprise, all of this is happening because of Mamata''s appeasement politics. If Mamata Banerjee is not removed from Bengal then the state will become like Jammu and Kashmir, it is due to her that the terrorists have got a stronghold in the border areas," Mr Vijayvargiya was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
According to reports, a poster in Bengali, distributed via the Telegram messaging service, had claimed that ISIS was "coming soon". Intelligence agencies have been on high alert, anticipating a terror attack in West Bengal or Bangladesh.
This comes just days after a string of deadly suicide attacks in Sri Lanka killed over 250 people. The terror attack is believed to have been carried out by two local Islamist groups linked to ISIS.
Mr Vijayvargiya has been a long-time critic of the Trinamool in Bengal, having even called for an alliance of BJP, Congress and the Left Front to "save" West Bengal.
However, Kailash Vijayvargiya has also made some questionable remarks, often targeting the opposition.
In a near-abusive remark in December, he attacked Rahul Gandhi's rise in politics. "A child born from a foreign woman can never be patriotic, nor have national interests at heart," he had said in a tweet which was later taken down.
He also hit out at the Congress after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined the party as its general secretary. He said that the party was fielding "chocolatey" faces in Lok Sabha polls, since it lacked strong leaders. He later justified his remarks saying it was directed at actors and not political leaders. In 2013, he allegedly justified rapes by saying that women who cross "certain lines" will end up paying the price.
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