Mamata Banerjee and Amit Shah: In an effort to intensify campaign rhetoric ahead of the Bengal election next year, Mamata Banerjee and Amit Shah exchanged accusations and insulting comments on Tuesday in equal measure.

This came after Shah accused the leader of the Trinamool Congress of fostering “fear, corruption, and misgovernance” during her 15 years in power in the eastern state when in Bengal on a three-day visit to boost his party’s election campaign.

The senior BJP politician also attacked Banerjee over the ‘ghuspaithiya’, or ‘infiltration’, problem, which has been a frequent target of the Trinamool. The BJP claims that the party ignores illegal foreign people crossing the border in return for their support. He said that the Chief Minister had disregarded seven requests for the Border Security Force to be given enough territory along the international border with Bangladesh in order to address the problem.At a news conference this evening, Shah angrily said, “I want to assure you that the BJP will never have any understanding with that political party which encourages illegal infiltration and pampers infiltrators to protect their dedicated voter bank.”Given that the threat is altering the state’s demographics, infiltration is a very severe problem. The misery of the Bengali people would worsen over the next several days if this isn’t stopped right once,” he said.

The chief minister responded in her usual combative manner by referring to Amit Shah as “Dushasan,” the character from the Hindu epic “Mahabharat.” She also criticized the Home Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party for the state’s voter list’s Special Intensive Revision, or re-verification, which is a controversial process and a major flashpoint before the polls in Tamil Nadu and Bengal next year.

Declaring that “they are saying 1.5 crore voters will be deleted,” she attacked “Dushasan” and “Duryodhan” on the SIR, a term that many interpreted as referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mamata Banerjee also took aim at the spate of fatalities during the SIR, particularly the deaths of booth level officers, or BLOs, who were in charge of distributing and collecting enumeration forms. “SIR caused around 60 deaths. We will gherao the Election Commission headquarters if even one legal voter’s name is removed. Elderly elderly are being summoned for document verification hearings.

“They are saying ‘Mamata hasn’t given land,'” the Chief Minister said in response to the land allocation accusation. All the development work has been done by whom? Yes, we have. How would they mine coal in Bengal if I didn’t give them land? We’ve donated land. Just empty rhetoric and falsehoods.”There there infiltrators just in Bengal? In Kashmir, no infiltrators? I would want to know how the terror incident in Pahalgam occurred. How did the Delhi bombing occur?