Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off eastern India’s first Vande Bharat Express in West Bengal on Friday, December 30, which is seen as an early launch of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign in the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Used to be. He will also attend a meeting of states in the West Bengal capital to take stock of the Centre’s Namami Gange conservation project.
This will be the PM’s first visit to Kolkata since the end of the West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021 20 months ago, which the BJP did lost Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee by a huge margin. Modi had Promoted in the state on a large scale regarding elections
Modi’s upcoming visit to Kolkata will also see him sharing the stage with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the first time in nearly two years. The last time the two were seen together was when they both attended the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at the Victoria Memorial in January 2021. congratulated With slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, Banerjee confirmed that she would attend the PM’s Namami Gange meeting.
Modi’s packed Kolkata visit comes at a time when the BJP is gearing up for the panchayat polls in the state, due early next year.
With the arrival of Home Minister Amit Shah visit Ten days ago at the Bengal BJP headquarters, while in Kolkata to chair an Eastern Zonal Council meeting, and during PM Modi’s Friday visit to the state, BJP cadres are expecting a big push from the party’s central leadership. Whose claim they were missing since the results of the 2021 assembly elections.
BJP MP Locket Chatterjee told ThePrint that as of now the PM does not have any political program scheduled apart from his official engagements, but his visit will surely boost the morale of BJP state workers.
“The Prime Minister has always given importance to West Bengal. During the elections (in 2021) he joined workers And now his coming to Kolkata after the elections shows that he thinks about Bengal. In fact, here in West Bengal, he will flag off the first Vande Bharat Express in Eastern India, which will run from South Bengal to North Bengal. This shows how Bengal has always been a priority for him and will certainly boost the confidence of BJP workers ahead of the (panchayat) elections.
Modi’s visit to Kolkata coincides with the perceived tone of the Trinamool Congress’s earlier scathing attack on the BJP.
The West Bengal CM had met Shah on the sidelines of the Eastern Zonal Council meeting during his visit to Kolkata. She also attended the G20 meeting chaired Modi earlier this month to discuss India’s G20 chairmanship and seek suggestions for next year’s summit, and there was a closed-door meeting With the Prime Minister in August in the national capital.
While senior officials in the government said the state was looking to clear MGNREGA and GST dues to reduce its debt burden, Trinamool leaders said the PM’s visit to Bengal would have no impact on the BJP’s electoral fortunes in the state.
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PM’s visit will have no impact: TMC
Pointing to the fact that Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and several other senior BJP leaders had visited West Bengal to campaign for last year’s assembly elections, but failed to influence the election results. were unsuccessful. On their side, Trinamool leaders claimed that the Prime Minister’s visit to Kolkata for a day was unlikely to make any impact due to the BJP’s “weak organizational structure” in the state.
Highlighting that the Vande Bharat Express will complete its journey from Howrah to New Jalpaiguri in the state in eight hours, like the existing Shatabdi Express, the TMC called the flagging off a “gimmick”.
“The prime minister should focus on infrastructure first. The railway infrastructure is so bad that Vande Bharat, his pet project, will not be able to run at the same speed here and will take the same amount of time as the Shatabdi Express. So, what is the use of inaugurating this train?” Alleged TMC Vice President Joy Prakash Mazumdar.
Political analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay also dismissed any political impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to West Bengal.
“It is a routine program and there will be no place for any political message. If Amit Shah’s meeting with BJP leaders at the party headquarters in Kolkata (earlier this month), followed by a one-on-one meeting with Mamata Banerjee ahead of the panchayat here could send a message to BJP workers in the state and the 2024 elections Bandopadhyay said.
Meanwhile, the BJP has welcomed the alleged turn down the voice The attitude of the Chief Minister towards the BJP and the Central Government in West Bengal. The PM and Banerjee have been known to exchange barbs in the past.
“In a federal structure, both the states and the Center work for the development of the people. But Mamta Banerjee’s arrogance deprived the people of Bengal from central schemes. She knows that if she has cordial relations with the Centre, the money stuck in New Delhi will be released. There is no point in thinking about the past, the fact that he has realised, is a welcome move and will only help Bengal develop further,” said MP Locket Chatterjee.
In May this year, Banerjee wrote Against the Center’s alleged delay in releasing funds allocated to the state under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and PM Awas Yojana schemes, PM Modi sought his intervention in the matter.
His government has also written to the Prime Minister’s Office about GST dues and Mamata herself raised The pending issue of Rs 27,000 crore in GST dues was taken up with the Prime Minister during the NITI Aayog meeting in August.
(Edited by: VS Chandrasekhar)
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