Nadda to visit West Bengal over the weekend

PTI, Kolkata, Feb 10,2023  :  BJP president JP Nadda will address two rallies in West Bengal on Sunday as his party prepares for the panchayat elections.

This will be Nadda’s second visit to the state in a month. He visited West Bengal on January 19.

“He is scheduled to arrive on Saturday evening. On Sunday, he will address a public meeting at Purbasthali in Purba Bardhaman, and then another at Kanthi in Purba Medinipur,” BJP state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay said.

Nadda will also hold an organisational meeting with state BJP leaders.

The BJP lost the Bardhaman Purba and Kanthi Lok Sabha seats to the Trinamool Congress in the 2019 elections.

Kanthi is the hometown of leader of opposition in the state assembly Suvendu Adhikari.

Nadda’s programmes are part of the BJP central leadership’s ‘Pravas’ campaign to strengthen its organisation in 144 Lok Sabha seats in the country that the party had lost by a slender margin in the 2019 elections.

Over the next few months, Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will address 12 rallies each, covering 24 Lok Sabha seats in the state that the party had lost in the last election.

The BJP won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 polls.

The ruling Trinamool Congress, however, declined to attach much importance to Nadda’s visit.

“As the rural polls are approaching, BJP leaders will be coming more frequently, but it will not yield any result. We have seen how the BJP’s central leaders had camped in West Bengal before the 2021 assembly polls but the party faced defeats,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

Nadda’s visit to West Bengal comes at a time when the party is looking to strengthen its organisational machinery ahead of the panchayat elections.

The BJP has been plagued by internal squabbles and defections after the 2021 assembly election results were announced.

Former Union minister Babul Supriyo, party MP Arjun Singh and six legislators, including national vice president Mukul Roy, have switched over to the TMC since the 2021 assembly polls.

The TMC steamrolled to power for the third consecutive term, winning 215 assembly seats, while the BJP bagged 77 seats.