With the Bihar elections ending and the festive season drawing to a close, the Bharatiya Janata Party is now shifting its entire focus to West Bengal, plunging fully into the election campaign for the crucial 2021 assembly elections.
While, on the one hand, the BJP has made a number of organizational changes with an eye toward polls over the past few weeks, on the other hand, the best of the party are visiting the state one after another to take stock of the preparations. of the battle as the polls. they are getting closer.
The leaders of the Bengal unit of the saffron party are also gradually upping the ante against the ruling Trinamool Congress and promise to further intensify the election campaign in the coming days with sharper attacks on the ruling party.
BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya, who has recently been appointed co-head of West Bengal, arrived in the state on Monday. Party leaders saw Malviya’s appointment as a boost from top BJP leaders in the battle on social media in the run-up to the Bengal elections.
BL Santosh, national secretary general (organization) of the BJP, will also arrive on Tuesday and a series of party meetings are scheduled.
“During the last two or three elections in Bengal, Malviya has managed the party’s social media and IT strategies. He knows well the problems of Bengal. His arrival would further strengthen the IT wing of the party’s state unit. Santosh is also coming for some meetings, ”said Dilip Ghosh, president of the BJP state unit.
In early November, the Union Interior Minister, Amit Shah, was on a two-day visit to Bengal to assess the party’s organizational readiness. Shah’s visit to Bengal also helped calm tense nerves in the party’s state unity. It was only after Shah’s visit that the BJP released the list of youth leaders for their district.
On Monday, the BJP upped its bet against the TMC when Ghosh, while speaking to the media, said that the BJP aims to transform Bengal into Gujarat.
“Bengal’s Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, sometimes says that efforts are to transform Bengal into Gujarat. I would say this is 100% true. We would turn Bengal into Gujarat. Now the people of Bengal need to migrate to Gujarat to get work. In the next few years, people will not have to go to Gujarat. They will get jobs in Bengal, ”Ghosh said.
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Leaders of the ruling TMC have criticized the BJP saying that the words Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh invoke images of police encounters.
“The problem with Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh is the encounters with the police. Around 2000 people have been killed in Gujarat. Several people like Ishrat Jahan have died in encounters. That is why we do not want Bengal to become Gujarat. Tata’s Nano car manufacturing factory also closed in Gujarat, ”said Firhad Hakim, minister of state and leader of TMC.
State officials see strong oversight by the BJP’s central leadership as a measure to stop internal rumors and resolve differences between leaders who previously worked for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and those who joined the BJP in recent years. . leaving the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Although the BJP won 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, party leaders said the assembly elections would not be child’s play, especially in the 15 districts of South Bengal, where the majority are located. of the assembly segments. Under Shah’s instructions, the party is now strengthening the organization down to the polling place level in the South Bengal districts.
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