Eye on polls, Shah may visit Bengal in April
To finalise the strategy on how to counter Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on her home turf, BJP national president Amit Shah is likely to visit West Bengal in two phases next month, party leaders said here on Sunday.
According to BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, Shah’s visits would separately focus on north and south Bengal. While the former region would be on his agenda during his first two-day visit — April 8 and April 9 — the latter would be the emphasis of his visit on April 19 and April 20.
Ghosh said their party chief’s visit would be “extremely crucial for the BJP” in view of the forthcoming three-tier panchayat elections in the state, likely to be held in May.
“Our national president is expected to set the tone and draw out the broad guidelines for the party workers on how to move forward in increasing the BJP’s network (in West Bengal),” Ghosh said.
Explaining the rationale behind Shah visiting the state in two phases, a senior state BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said that the “overall focus” would be on strengthening the BJP’s network and acceptability among the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in Bengal.
As per the 2011 Census, 23% of the state’s total population comprise people in SC category, while the ST category constitutes 5.5% of the total population.
With an eye on the SC populace, the Mamata Banerjee government has already announced setting up the state’s own “SC Advisory Council”.
“The proposed visit of our national president in two phases has been planned so that he can give more focus on the two regions of north Bengal and south Bengal separately. Initially, the state leadership wanted Shah’s visit to be held after the panchayat elections. But it was understood that if the trip was postponed, Shah would not be able to visit Bengal before June or July considering his busy schedule in wake of the assembly elections in Karnataka in May,” the party leader said.
It is learnt that besides holding meetings with the party’s state leadership, Shah is also likely to hold meetings with the party’s district presidents and take stock of the progress made by the party in the membership drive in Bengal.
Shah is also likely to hold discussions with former TMC general secretary and current BJP leader Mukul Roy to finalise the campaign strategy for the panchayat polls and long-term strategy for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
KOLKATA: Our national president (Amit Shah) is expected to set the tone and draw out the broad guidelines for the party’s workers on how to move forward towards increasing the BJP’s network (in north and south Bengal) DILIP GHOSH, West Bengal BJP president