Ahead of 2024 parliament elections across India, the BJP’s national president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived on a hurricane tour of West Bengal to review the party’s organisational strengths and weakness and discuss with the state leadership strategies aiming to win 35 seats out of a total of 42 in the state, party sources said.
Shah, who has already declared his political aspiration to unseat the ruling TMC was headed by Mamata Banerjee, and Nadda arrived at Dum Dum airport around 12.45 am (midnight) while the city was hugely illuminated to mark the Christmas celebrations.
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said they have a series of organisational indoor meetings during the day.
The visiting leaders are also scheduled to pay obeisance to the Gurdwara in central Kolkata and the city’s deity the Kalighat temple during their stay.
Besides Majumdar, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari and Kharagpur MP and former state president Dilip Ghosh were among those who greeted the leaders at the airport.
Shah was scheduled to come into the city, but Nadda’s presence with the union home minister assumed much significance to the saffron brigade, which is holding daily political programmes across the state.
Majumdar said, barring some social organisation members, who have contact with the party, no other mainstream media has been invited so far in the BJP’s core committee meeting is to be held at the National Library Tuesday afternoon.
Shah had come to this city on November 29 last and addressed a massive gathering at the Esplanade.
The BJP’s central leadership is aiming to win at least 35 seats out of 42.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, the saffron brigade won 18 seats, a record in the election history of Bengal, and the ruling TMC headed by Mamata Banerjee won the lion share of 22. Congress had only two, and the Left parties drew blank.
