Kolkata: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a two-day visit to West Bengal from April 14 when he will hold a public meeting and take stock of the organisational strength of the party in the state.
Shah is visiting the state ahead of the rural polls in the state, which is due next month, and the party seeks to strengthen its organisational machinery.
"Amit Shah Ji will be on a two-day visit to West Bengal from April 14. He is scheduled to hold a public meeting in Birbhum in the afternoon and inaugurate the district party office in Suri. He will come to the city later in the evening, hold a meeting with the state party leaders and take stock of the organisational situation," a state BJP leader said.
On Bengali New Year's Day on April 15 he will visit Dakshineswar Temple and offer puja. He will then return to New Delhi, he said. The ruling TMC declined to attach importance to Shah's visit. "As the rural poll in West Bengal is approaching, BJP leaders will come to the state more frequently. But it will not yield any result," TMC leader and state minister Partha Bhowmick said.
BJP was plagued by internal squabbles and defections after the 2021 assembly election. Former union minister Babul Supriyo, party MP Arjun Singh and six legislators, including national vice-president Mukul Roy, have switched to TMC since the poll. Birbhum, where Shah is slated to hold a public meeting, is considered to be a stronghold of the ruling TMC. But political equations in the south Bengal district have changed in the last few months after CBI arrested Trinamool Congress district president Anubrata Mondal in the cattle smuggling case.
Shah's programme in Bengal is part of BJP's 'Pravas' campaign to strengthen its organisation in 144 Lok Sabha seats in the country that it had lost by slender margins in the 2019 general election. The party had won 18 of the total Lok Sabha 42 seats in Bengal then.
The BJP leader said that Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda are slated to address 12 rallies each, covering 24 Lok Sabha seats in the state that the party had lost in the election that year. Nadda has already addressed two rallies in West Bengal as part of the Pravas campaign in January and February.
TMC steamrolled to power for the third consecutive term in the state in 2021 by winning 215 of the 292 seats to which polling was held, while the BJP bagged 77. (PTI)
