‘We’re not fighting Muslims’: Bengal BJP’s new chief Samik Bhattacharya calls for harmony; says ‘we want to replace stones with books’

KOLKATA: BJP "isn't fighting Muslims... and the state's plurality needs to be saved", Samik Bhattacharya said on Thursday after taking over as the party's new state president."There is a conscious effort to divide Bengal on basis of religion. The minority community should understand that we are not fighting against them. We are fighting against the forces that shove stones in their boys' hands. We want to replace stones with books. We want to replace the swords in their hands with pens," Bhattacharya said in his first speech after being unanimously elected state BJP's president.Bhattacharya's line contrasts sharply with the shrill anti-Muslim pitch adopted by his BJP colleague and assembly opposition leader, Suvendu Adhikari, and comes after his party's abject defeat in the Kaliganj assembly bypoll. Kaliganj is a Muslim-majority constituency in Nadia. BJP was the only party that saw its vote share dip (from 31% in 2021 to 28.2% now), prompting Trinamool to emphasise how BJP had failed to hold on to even its majority-community votes.It remains to be seen whether Bhattacharya's colleagues in the party keep up their anti-Muslim pitch even as he takes a conciliatory approach, which would indicate the party has hit on a good cop-bad cop strategy with Bengal's 2.5 crore-odd Muslim voters."Look at Bengal's villages. Morchhe Musalman, marchhe Musalman (Muslims are killing and Muslims are dying). Who is responsible for this situation? Those who do not like the BJP may not vote for us. But they should accept that 90% of the people killed in the last three years have been Muslims," he said."The BJP wants visarjan and Muharram processions to walk side by side without any malice against each other. We do not want riots. We want the minority youth to know Bengal through the eyes of Syed Mujtaba Ali and Kazi Nazrul Islam, not terrorists. We want to save Bengal's plurality," Bhattacharya said, harping on communal amity with the entire Bengal BJP leadership and former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on the dais."Bengal's voters know that only the BJP can defeat the Trinamool. The binary, created in 2019 Lok Sabha, was intact even in Kaliganj. The Trinamool will have to go now," he said, adding: "People have rejected Mamata Banerjee and want investment and jobs. People will have the last word this time."