Battleground Bengal: Shah's visit aimed to up ante against Trinamool Congress

KOLKATA: During his two-day Bengal visit this week, Union Home minister Amit Shah would up the ante against the Trinamool Congress on the attack on BJP’s national president JP Nadda’s motorcade and lay stress on the "breakdown’’ of the law and order in the state, a major plank of the party’s campaign in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Shah is likely to visit Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan in Birbhum district and hold a roadshow in the TMC’s stronghold.

Sources in the Bengal BJP said Shah might address a rally in Bongaon, the area with high concentration of Hindu Bangladeshi refugees who belong to Matua religious sect where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addressed a rally last week to woo the electorates known as Dalits.

Matuas, in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, shifted their political allegiance to the BJP from the ruling TMC.

The BJP bagged two Lok Sabha seats—Bongaon and Ranaghat, where concentration of Hindu refugee electorates is high, by promising to implement contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act and give them citizenship.

Since the act is yet to be implemented, the saffron camp is feeling the under current discontent among the Hindu refugee voters in the region, Shah’s Bongaon visit is said to be a move to retain the vote-bank in the two Lok Sabha constituencies.    

BJP Bengal functionaries said Shah’s Bengal visit must be seen in the context of the attack on Nadda’s convoy in Diamond Harbour, the Lok Sabha constituency of Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

"Amitji will politically counter the incident during his tour. The attack on our party’s national president not only gave us political mileage, it will also secure electoral dividend in next year’s Assembly elections," said a BJP leader.

The saffron camp is gearing up to portray the attack on Nadda’s motorcade as a reflection of lawlessness in Bengal during Shah’s two-day visit to the state.     

Six days before the Union Home minister is scheduled to land at Kolkata, Bengal BJP launched an outreach drive by issuing ‘job assurance card’ to 75 lakh jobless youths.

"Unemployment in Bengal is one of the key agendas that we are going to highlight in next year’s election campaign. Our party workers will visit door-to-door and meet at 75 lakh unemployed youths.

They will take down their details information and a database will be prepared. While handing over the job assurance card to the youths, we will give them words that their employment issue will be given first priority once the BJP comes to power in Bengal,’’ said the saffron camp’s national vice president Mukul Roy.