Taking the poll plunge tad early the BJP has decided to bring two of its topmost leaders to Bengal every month.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda have decided to take turns visiting Bengal several times every month till the end of the next year’s Assembly elections for which the saffron outfit has set a “bull’s eye-target” of “200-plus” seats out 294.
“We have been told that our national president JP Nadda ji will visit Bengal thrice and Amit Shah ji will come to our State twice every … but the dates have not been finalized… We will announce the dates of their visit subsequently… naturally the party workers will be energized by their visit,” State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.
The party top brass have handpicked senior BJP leaders Sunil Deodhar,Vinod Tawde, Dushyant Gautam, Harish Dwivedi and Vinod Sonkar to supervise organization and campaigning in North Bengal, Rarh Banga (Purulia-Bankura-Birbhum districts), Krishnagar-Nabadwip, Midnapore and Kolkata organisational zones in that order.
Meanwhile, reacting to the BJP’s declaration of winning 200-plus seats Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that the saffron outfit was trying to create disturbance in an otherwise peaceful state by importing outsiders who have no inkling of Bengali culture.
“Outsiders (read BJP central leaders) are being sent to Bengal to disturb the peace in this State,” Banerjee said while her party MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy called BJP’s 200-plus seat target a “day dream.”
Roy said “there are some parties who are saying that as they have won 19 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections they will come to power in Bengal in 2021… but I must remind them how the Congress got 16 parliamentary seats from Bengal in 1984 but two years later in the Assembly elections they managed only 42 seats which can be translated to 6 Lok Sabha seats… so these parties should stop day-dreaming and creating disturbance in Bengal by bringing outsiders.”
Elsewhere in another incident of political killing a BJP workers was beaten to death by alleged Trinamool Congress men in Coochbehar district of North Bengal. The incident occurred during immersion of idols of Goddess Kali in Tufanganj area, sources said. The TMC has denied the allegations.
The victim a BJP booth secretary Kalachand Karmakar (55) was trying to pacify the members of the two clubs who were involved in a brawl. In the process he was badly beaten up, sources alleged saying he died in the hospital.