Abhishek Banerjee, a senior Trinamool Congress leader, issued a challenge to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. He proposed that Shah contest against him in the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency and if the BJP leader wins, he would retire from active politics.
Banerjee, often regarded as the second-in-command within the TMC, further asserted that Shah had two alternative avenues to prompt his retirement from the political arena.
If you want Abhishek Banerjee to leave active politics, then I would like you to fulfil any of the three options I am providing you today. You release the state's dues of Rs 1,64,000 crore and I will retire within 24 hours. The second option is to release the funds of the PM Awas Yojana," Banerjee said at an election rally for TMC's Mathurapur candidate Bapi Halder.
The nomination for the Diamond Harbour constituency is yet to start. The third option: you (Shah) contest from here and defeat me. I will leave politics forever, the party's national general secretary said.
In response to the BJP leader's earlier assertion made in Memari, where he claimed that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee endorsed him as the next chief minister of West Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee remarked that not everyone shared Shah's perspective. Shah, currently representing the Gandhinagar seat in Gujarat in the Lok Sabha