New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced that it will not hold any more “big public meetings” with more than 500 people in West Bengal, where Assembly elections are underway. The saffron party decided to not hold rallies, including those by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other party leaders, in a much-needed effort to break the chain of coronavirus infection.
The decision comes amid the party facing flak from rivals for the big rallies of its leaders in West Bengal amid the COVID-19 tally rising to staggering levels across the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders will be addressing only small public meetings to be attended by a maximum of 500 people, the party said in a statement. The BJP added that all its public meetings will be held in open places following all COVID-19 guidelines and that it will distribute six crore masks and sanitisers in the state.
Exuding confidence, BJP’s IT wing head Amit Malviya, also the party’s co-in charge for the state, said the BJP will leverage its “massive digital footprint” and take the message of Modi and other leaders to lakhs of people.
“We did that successfully during Bihar elections, which too was conducted under the cloud of Covid. The opposition had then complained that it gave us an edge,” he said.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has already cancelled his rallies in West Bengal while the ruling Trinamool Congress president and the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that her party would organise small meetings in Kolkata and she would give short speeches in rallies in districts where polling would be held in the remaining three phases.
With PTI inputs