In an apparent indication of the BJP losing its post-Lok Sabha elections advantage to the Trinamool Congress a large number of saffron cadres from Birbhum and North 24 Parganas who had left the Bengal ruling outfit barely a few months ago have started switching over to Mamata Banerjee’s side.
So much so that the State BJP has decided to dispatch cadres in the interior areas with booklets and other publicity materials to convince the masses about the Citizenship Amendment Bill and National Register for Citizens according to the TMC leadership have already claimed more than a dozen lives in panic.
According to sources soon after the massive jolt the saffron outfit suffered at the hands of the TMC losing all the three seats in the just-concluded three Assembly by-elections of Kaliaganj in North Bengal, Karimpur in Nadia South and Kharagpur in South-western part of the State hordes of BJP workers — who had joined that party after it won 18 out of 42 seats in the April May Lok Sabha election — have started rejoining the ruling outfit.
“Today a few hundred BJP workers have joined the TMC in Birbhum and Naihati” in North 24 Parganas Bengal Minister JP Mullick said adding “the people have finally understood that they are safe in the hands of Mamata Banerjee.”
Already the TMC has regained four or five municipalities it had lost to the BJP post parliamentary elections when a bevy of civic representatives had joined the BJP.
With the Chief Minister quite deftly manipulating the NRC issue to use it against the BJP in the Assembly by-elections ensuring a massive swing of votes in the TMC’s favour the BJP has asked its cadres to hit the roads and move into the villages “to educate
the people about the CAB and the NRC.”
The party has already published booklets to enable the party workers to understand the facts and then approach the voters, a senior party functionary said adding the RSS cadres would also be working alongside the BJP workers in the villagers.
Senior State leader Sayantan Basu said “we will keep Hindu refugees as well as Indian Muslims, but will exclude Bangladeshi infiltrators. We will make all the relevant information available to our block-level workers, who will reach every home to convey the facts to common people.”
Another senior leader said, “We want the people to understand what Mamata Banerjee is saying is all false and the fear she has generated among the people is in fact unfounded.” The party will soon start taking classes to instruct the workers and also the interested people. Senior BJP and RSS leaders will address the classes, sources said.
The BJP which has removed Kailash Vijabargiya as the party’s central observer for Bengal post reverses suffered by it in the Assembly by-elections is planning to change the State committee too. Already several changes have been made at Mandal and district levels to strengthen the party, sources said.
Meanwhile, in a relevant development Congress and BJP workers engaged in a street fight in central Kolkata on Thursday with the police having a hard time to contain the two sides pelting stones at each other.
The BJP workers were celebrating the passage of the CAB in Parliament while the Congress was opposing it descending on the streets when the two sides clashed leading a number of them to get minor injuries, police said.