Kolkata: After visiting West Bengal only last month, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is set to return next week amid panchayat elections in the state. His itinerary is likely to include a rally in Murshidabad – a district with a 70 per cent Muslim population where the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are still perceived force,
In the bypolls held in February this year, the Congress-Left alliance wrested the Sagardighi assembly seat in Murshidabad district from the ruling Trinamool Congress. According to sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shah is likely to address a rally in the district on May 9.
Political analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay told ThePrint, “I think the BJP has chosen Murshidabad district for Amit Shah’s rally to garner Hindu votes. It was successful in the district in the 2021 state elections when it wrested the Baharampur (earlier Berhampur) assembly seat from the Congress.
He said that “the desperation of the BJP is notable as the party’s size has decreased in the Sagardighi elections”.
In 2021, the people of Murshidabad assembly constituency elected BJP MLA Gauri Shankar Ghosh for the first time. Ghosh, however, resigned from the BJP’s state unit last year alleging that the party had failed to acknowledge the “organisational weaknesses” in West Bengal.
It is also from Murshidabad district that the CBI arrested TMC MLA Jeeban on April 17. Krishna Saha Regarding the alleged teacher recruitment scam in the state.
The district has three Lok Sabha seats, one of which is held by the Congress (Bahrampur) while the TMC holds the other two (Murshidabad and Jangipur).
Speaking at a rally in Birbhum district on 14 April during his last visit to the state, Shah had set a target for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to win 35 of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in next year’s general election.
During his visit next week, Shah will also celebrate Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary on May 8, visiting the poet’s ancestral home in Kolkata’s Jorasanko, followed by paying tribute to him at a public event in the city.
Read also: From UP to Karnataka, Rajasthan to Nagaland – Amit Shah on tough journey to win Modi a third term
Shah’s focus on West Bengal
Locket Chatterjee, BJP MP from Hooghly, told ThePrint that “despite his busy schedule, Amit Shah keeps returning to the state”.
Chatterjee said, “Amit Shah has given time to West Bengal during 2021. He is also in constant touch with many intellectuals of the state and has always focused here.”
Shah’s recurring visits to West Bengal are believed to have not only boosted the morale of the state BJP, but are also politically significant, given that Abhishek, the Trinamool national general secretary and nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is on a two-month ‘Jan Sanjog’ campaign. traveling’. The state will consolidate TMC’s grassroots support ahead of the 2024 elections.
Speaking to ThePrint about Shah’s visit, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh described the minister as a ‘tourist from Bengal’ and said the BJP has been rejected by the people of the state.
“He can come as many times as he wants but the BJP will not be able to win in Bengal. Their dreams for 2024 will be shattered just like 2021 (when the BJP could not win the state elections),” Ghosh said.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)