Trinamool faces brunt of BJP attack on Congress leader’s Bengal home turf
In recent rallies, Yogi Adityanath and J.P. Nadda have been silent on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, ve-time Congress MP from Baharampur, targeting Trinamool instead over ‘demographic change’
As campaigning picks up for the Baharampur Lok Sabha seat in the heart of West Bengal, there is a discernible shift in the campaign speeches by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who have refrained from any direct attack on the sitting Congress MP and West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Over the past three days, two key BJP leaders — party president J.P. Nadda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — held rallies in Baharampur but their speeches made no mention of the Congress MP.
Addressing election rallies for the BJP candidates from Baharampur, Asansol and Birbhum Lok Sabha seats on Tuesday, Mr. Adityanath raised the issue of violence during the Ram Navami procession on April 17. “Had such incidents taken place in Uttar Pradesh, I would have taught the perpetrators such a lesson that their next seven generations would not have dared to even think of doing any such thing,” he said.
The U.P. CM also alleged that there was a demographic change across several constituencies of West Bengal and attacked the the Trinamool Congress government for this.
On Sunday, Mr. Nadda said at an election meeting in Baharampur that the
Mamata Banerjee-led government was a “terrorist sympathiser” and wanted a Union government that was “soft on terrorism”.
Electoral challenge
According to the 2011 census, Muslims account for 66% of the population in three Lok Sabha seats — Jangipur, Murshidabad and Baharampur. Mr. Chowdhury, who has defended Baharampur ve times, is facing one of the biggest electoral challenges of his career. “They will target me only if there are any allegations,” he said when asked about the BJP taking a step back in their attack.
Mr. Chowdhury won this seat in 2019 with a margin of over 80,000 votes, down from a 3.5 lakh victory margin in 2014.
This time his rival Trinamool Congress candidate is former cricketer Yusuf Pathan and BJP’s Nirmal Saha. Dr. Saha, once a physician to the State Congress president, said the BJP leaders were not targeting Mr. Chowdhury as his “popularity among the masses had decreased”.
Mr. Chowdhury too has been soft in targeting the BJP, and has instead been blaming the Trinamool for the rise of the BJP in the State.
The Trinamool Congress leadership, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, have often charged the Congress leader of being the BJP’s “Trojan horse”.