Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday mounted a blistering attack on the TMC, accusing it of promoting infiltration in West Bengal to fulfil its “hunger for power”, and asserted that the party has to be voted out of power to end illegal immigration and ensure the state's development.

Modi warned that the border state was staring at a “social crisis” with its demography being altered, land of farmers and tribals encroached upon, and the economy put under strain, owing to infiltration.

Addressing a packed rally at Dum Dum in North 24 Parganas district, he urged the people of Bengal to utilise their votes in next year’s assembly polls as a weapon to oust both infiltrators and the ruling dispensation, alleging that the TMC’s “politics of appeasement” had endangered the state’s security and throttled its development. He accused the TMC of blocking central schemes, stalling urban growth and betraying its core slogan of ‘Maa, Mati, Manush’ (Mother, Land and People) that had once propelled it to power in the eastern state.

“This country can no longer tolerate infiltrators. We will not allow them to stay in India. Those who have come here to snatch the livelihood of our people by fraudulently obtaining documents... they will have to leave.