BJP mobilises Odisha leaders to campaign in Bengal polls

As the West Bengal Assembly elections draw near, the Odisha unit of the BJP has drawn up a roadmap to play an active role in campaigning across six southern districts of the neighbouring State, a senior party leader said.

Odisha BJP OBC Morcha president Surath Biswal said the party has already identified the leaders from Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts to campaign for candidates in the Bengal polls.

MLAs, MPs and panchayat-level leaders from Kendrapara and Jajpur districts have also been identified to participate in the campaign, he said. “I have been assigned to campaign in the Gopiballavpur area of Jhargram district in West Bengal, located on the banks of the Subarnarekha River near the Odisha and Jharkhand borders. I have friends and relatives in that area,” BJP MLA Bhaskar Madehi from Udala Assembly segment in Mayurbhanj district said.

Madehi said he would soon visit Gopiballavpur and stay there for a few days to campaign for the party.  Biswal said a team of BJP MLAs led by the State’s Higher Education Minister Suryabanshi Suraj, who is also an MLA from Bhadrak district, attended a meeting in Kolkata on Friday.

The team included MLAs Santosh Khatua and senior BJP leader Goutam Ray from Jajpur district. “The ministers, MLAs and MPs selected to campaign in West Bengal polls are fluent in Bengali and have relatives working in Kolkata and other towns of West Bengal,” one of the MLAs said.

Odisha BJP leaders will mainly campaign in Kolkata, South and North 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, and East and West Midnapore districts, party sources said, adding that at least two dozen MLAs have been identified for the purpose.

The party plans to replicate the campaign strategy adopted during the recent Nuapada bypolls, where leaders from neighbouring Chhattisgarh were deployed in designated areas, leading to the BJP’s victory, the sources said.

Of the 28 MLAs from the four northern Odisha districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar, the BJP has 18 members. The party also holds all four Lok Sabha seats in the region. This apart, the Odisha BJP has also prepared roadmaps for campaigning in Kolkata, where a large number of Odia live. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi (Keonjhar) and BJP state president Manmohan Samal (Bhadrak), who hail from northen region of Odisha, having borders with West Bengal, will also campaign in the polls, a leader said. “The upcoming West Bengal election is a prestige fight for us. We will put in all efforts and inform people what the BJP’s double engine Government in Odisha has achieved. We will highlight Odisha’s Subhadra Yojana under which the women in the age group of 21 years to 60 years get financial assistance of Rs 50,000 in five years,” a senior BJP leader said, adding that the State Government’s Rs 800 financial assistance per quintal of paddy will also be highlighted in the Bengal elections.