PM Brigade cold feet... February 8 meeting of PM postponed for third time...visiting Siliguri on February 2

TT, Calcutta: In the season of #10yearchallenge, guess who is not game for the Brigade challenge? The jinxed rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Brigade Parade Grounds on February 8 has been deferred.

"Our central leaders are unsure whether a large enough crowd could be ensured to fill the Brigade Parade Grounds on such short notice…. We are postponing our February 8 meeting there," BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh said on Monday.

Let alone "filling" the Brigade, marshalling a turnout that looks fairly respectable on the sprawling grounds has always been a daunting task. The situation has been made more formidable for the BJP because the turnout at Modi's rally would have invited an inevitable comparison with that of the Opposition rally on Saturday which had drawn a huge crowd.

Sources said the BJP leadership realised that after a national audience witnessed lakhs descending on the Brigade for Mamata's rally, a more modest turnout for the Prime Minister would have send a wrong message.

Modi's rally was originally scheduled for January 23 but was rescheduled twice -- first to January 29 and then to February 8.

Although Ghosh referred to "short notice", other BJP leaders pointed out that Modi's Brigade rally was announced in July last year after Mamata announced her plans for her January 19 programme.

"The Prime Minister could come to Bengal on February 8 to address a public rally in Asansol instead," Ghosh said, adding that Modi could address public meetings on January 28 in Bongaon's Thakurnagar and on February 2 in Siliguri.

Although the BJP has called off Modi's February 8 rally in the city, the Left Front is going ahead with its February 3 programme at the Brigade. Amit Shah chopper row,