Lashing out at BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday said that the former West Bengal minister will lose by over 50,000 votes in any seat he contests in his home turf Medinipur.

Addressing a public meeting around 5 km from Adhikari family residence ‘Shantikunj’ here, the TMC youth wing chief contested claims that Purba Medinipur district is the Adhikaris’ fortress and asserted that the BJP will lose the upcoming assembly elections due in April-May.

‘West Bengal will re-elect Mamata Banerjee as the chief minister for the third time with the TMC winning more than 250 seats and trouncing the BJP,’ he said.

On the BJP’s claims that the chief minister hasn’t visited Nandigram in five years, Banerjee questioned how many times did Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union Home Minister Amit Shah come to Medinipur during that period.

‘He (Modi) is coming to Haldia tomorrow due to the upcoming elections,’ Banerjee said.

The prime minister will visit Haldia in Purba Medinipur district on Sunday to inaugurate several infrastructure projects in the oil and gas sector.

‘This year’s assembly elections are more important for the people of Purba Medinipur because the chief minister of the state will be elected from this district. Mamata Banerjee will fight the elections from Nandigram,’ he said.

‘He (Adhikari) is claiming that Mamata Banerjee will be defeated by over half lakh votes but why are you not asking your party to make you, Suvendu Adhikari, a candidate from here on a BJP ticket to fight against her,’ Banerjee said, asserting that he will be vanquished.

The Diamond Harbour MP said that he will come to Purba and Paschim Medinipur districts over 50 times in the next two months and ensure that the deposits of BJP candidates are forfeited in the assembly elections.

‘After three months of forming the government, I take the responsibility to make them (BJP) politically bankrupt,’ Banerjee, nephew of the chief minister, said.

He claimed that those who have insulted the land of Matangini Hazra, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Sushil Dhara by deserting the TMC will get the reply from the people in the elections.

Following the footsteps of Suvendu Adhikari, his younger brother Soumendu, a former chairman of Kanthi Municipality, has left the TMC to join the saffron party.

His father Sisir Adhikari and another brother Dibyendu are TMC’s Lok Sabha MPs.

Taking a swipe at Suvendu Adhikari, a former minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, for joining the BJP in the presence of Shah, Banerjee said that he has touched the feet of the man during whose rally Vidyasagar’s statue was vandalised.

The statue of the social reformer and educationist, an icon of Bengal, was vandalised during Shah’s rally in Kolkata in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, with the TMC and BJP pointing fingers at each other for the desecration.

Banerjee claimed that Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukerjee had opposed the Quit India movement and that he had sided with the British imperialists.

He alleged that the CBI and ED are the two engines of the BJP’s double-engine government.

One of the election planks of the BJP is that the governments of the same party at the Centre and in the state will ensure better development of West Bengal.