With the BJP and the Trinamool Congress engaged in a war of purported audio tapes exposes against each other, senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday asserted that it showed that phones of Opposition leaders were tapped in West Bengal.

“Is this a democratic practice,” he questioned even as he appealed to voters of Nandigram, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is locked in a high-profile contest with her former lieutenant and BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari, to support his party saying they can bring about a change for better in the State by their votes.

He also claimed that the ground feedback about the first-phase of polling received by the party provides clear-cut indications that it will sweep 26 of the 30 Assembly seats in West Bengal and similarly, win 37 of the 48 seats in Assam.

Shah claimed that his party would win over 200 seats in West Bengal to form the Government ousting the Mamata Government and improve its performance in Assam. He also expressed confidence of forming Government in Assam and Puducherry.

“In Kerala, we would improve our performance and form the Government in time to come,” he told reporters. Shah hoped that the AIADMK and NDA may form Government in Tamil Nadu.

However, while the BJP has been showcasing a telephonic conversation Mamata had with a BJP leader, who was earlier in her party to woo him back to her fold, to claim that it showed that the TMC chief was losing, Shah, downplayed it saying everyone has a right to solicit support.

But then, the Home Minister hit out at the TMC for releasing the audio in which BJP vice president Mukul Roy is allegedly telling industrialist and party leader Shishir Bajoria about their approach to the Election Commission, saying this shows that phones of Opposition leaders were being tapped in the State. Shah asserted that there is nothing incriminating in that conversation as the BJP has given in writing to the poll watchdog what the two leaders were heard discussing.

“In Bengal, there will be sampoorna parivartan,” said Shah when asked about reports that the BJP and the TMC are evenly matched but the former is still having an edge. “Delhi press should have its ear to the ground… they failed in assessing outcomes of many State elections in the past,” he said here addressing a Press conference.

Shah said BJP would collect “positive votes” as it has “ignited new hope” in Bengal.

Mamata is seeking to recreate the ‘Nandigram magic’ of 2011 again by contesting from this Assembly constituency giving up her traditional Assembly seat of Bhawanipore.

Nandigarm was the battle field where massive farmers protest against acquisition of land for establishing a chemical factory turned the tables on the Left-front Government and led to its ouster in 2011, bringing the Mamata-headed TMC to power in the State.

The former BJP president said the peaceful polling and the high voter turnouts are positive signs for the two States and thanked the voters. “Not a single person was killed or a single bullet fired,” he said.

He also expressed gratitude towards the Election Commission (EC) for conducting peaceful elections in Assam and violence-prone West Bengal.

On the question whether high-turnout in Bengal elections augurs well for the TMC, Shah said high polling in 2011 Assembly elections witnessed ouster of the Left-Front Government.

Rejecting the TMC’s criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, he said the visit is to strengthen bilateral ties and has nothing to do with elections. Shah rejected the West Bengal Chief Minister’s charge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to a temple of the Matua community -- which is in sizeable number in the State -- during his trip to Bangladesh violated the poll code.

On the chief ministerial candidate in Assam and race for it between the incumbent Sarbananda Sonowal and his ministerial colleague Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Home Minister said it would be decided by the party after the Assembly elections. He went on to say that under Modi’s leadership, Chief Minister Sonowal and Sarma have ushered in a lot of development which has been drawing people’s support.