With Bengal coming in BJP’s priority list in the upcoming elections Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address two back-to-back rallies --- on March 18 and 20 --- ahead of the first phase of elections on March 27. His first meeting will be at Purulia and the second at Contai the home-town of BJP’s Nandigram campaigner Suvendu Adhikari, party sources said.
Modi attended a huge rally at Kolkata’s historic Brigade Parade Ground on Sunday attacking the TMC regime.
BJP star candidate Adhikari who joined the saffron outfit late last year after quitting the Trinamool Congress will file his nomination against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from high-profile Nandigram seat on March 12, his party sources said adding two central ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani would accompany him during his filing of nomination at Haldia.
Adhikari has openly challenged the Chief Minister to defeat her by half-a-lakh votes from Nandigram. Banerjee will file her nomination for the same seat on March 10.
Apart from Mukul Roy who too left the TMC to join the BJP three years ago, Adhikari a former MP and a powerful State Minister had been the principal campaigner for Mamata Banerjee during her Nandigram land movement.