JP Nadda and Amit Shah during the BJP meeting in Kolkata.
Credit: PTI Photo
The preparation for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, next year, has got flagged off for the BJP in West Bengal, with the simultaneous visit, and holding of back-to-back meetings and programmes, on Tuesday, by the party’s senior-most leaders – JP Nadda, and Amit Shah.
Nadda and Shah, who had arrived late night on Monday, held back-to-back organisational meetings, after visiting a gurdwara, and Kalighat Temple.
The meetings with presence of nodal leaders, sets the ball rolling for the state unit to ideate, and move ahead with campaigns. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the party had won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state. For the upcoming elections, Shah has set a target of 35 seats for the state unit.
The two leaders were also part of a social media volunteer meeting, held at the National Library. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said that around 1,500 “cyber fighters” offering “voluntary service” got encouraged following the interaction.
The BJP leaders, in the state, have kept issues of corruption, promotion of family-members in politics, appeasement, and unemployment at the forefront. These issues are likely to figure in the upcoming campaigns as well.
Meanwhile, the young supporters of the Trinamool Congress had called for a protest in different towns and blocks of the state. The agitation is against the recent remarks made by BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, that allegedly insult Swami Vivekananda. Majumdar has already clarified his stand.
In Kolkata, Trinamool’s youth-wing members took to the streets, with footballs – that symbolically reflected Vivekananda’s quotation on playing football, and on reciting Gita. Shashi Panja, a senior Trinamool leader and a minister in the state government participated in the protest, and played football as a gesture of support.
Kunal Ghosh, Trinamool’s spokesperson, underplayed Nadda-Shah visit saying that 35 is a far-fetched number, and the party should first exhibit its strength winning three to five seats from Bengal. Ghosh, terming the central BJP leaders (who visit Bengal) as “daily passengers”, said that the more the leaders visit Bengal, the more the BJP will lose seats in the state.