Political strategist Prashant Kishor predicted a crushing defeat for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections on Monday. The party will struggle to cross even the double-digit mark in the polls, Kishor said.
“Despite all the AMPLIFIED hype by a supporting media section, in reality BJP will have a hard time CROSSING DOUBLE DIGITS in West Bengal,” he tweeted, adding that he would “leave this space” if proven wrong.
Read also: Bengal’s next CM will not be an ‘outsider’, says Amit Shah
Kishor’s tweet comes after several leaders, including Trinamool Congress (TMC) heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari, defected to the BJP during Union Interior Minister Amit Shah’s visit to the state on December 19. Leaders of the ruling TMC, left-wing parties and Congress joined the BJP. before the assembly elections scheduled for 2021.
In the upcoming assembly elections scheduled for next year, the BJP seeks to end the nearly decade-long rule of the TMC in the state. In the 2019 general elections, despite the fact that West Bengal was one of the few states where the BJP was unable to make profound advances, it had won 18 out of 42 seats, emerging as a clear opposition to the TMC government.
Read also: ‘I’ve never seen a tour like this, the people of Bengal want a change’: Amit Shah
Kishor, who heads the Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), is behind several campaigns that led to significant victories for various parties. His first major campaign was for then-Gujarat Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2011. In 2014, his campaign group Citizens for Responsible Governance brought Modi and the BJP to an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, Union Interior Minister Amit Shah reiterated on Sunday his position on the attack on the convoy of BJP chief JP Nadda, calling it an “attack on democracy”. He held the TMC responsible for the attack and said it proves the bad situation of law and order in the state.
Shah also said that his party’s CM candidate in the assembly elections will be someone from West Bengal and not an ‘outsider’, a term used by Banerjee to refer to central BJP leaders when they visit the state. “Do you want a country where people from one state don’t visit another? Did you call Indira Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, Narasimha Rao outsiders when they used to come to West Bengal? But don’t worry, no one from Delhi will come to defeat him. Someone from Bengal will challenge him and he will be the next CM of the state, ”he said.
.
