KOLKATA: Just 45 days after the BJP planned big for West Bengal during its national executive meet in Bhubaneswar in mid-April, 16 BJP leaders including Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, his Jharkhand counterpart Raghubar Das, Central ministers Ananth Kumar and Suresh Prabhu, BJP national secretary Shahnawaz Hussain and Cabinet ministers of Uttar Pradesh will hold public meetings in different towns of the State from Friday to highlight the achievements of the ‘3 years of the Narendra Modi government’.
The programmes will start with UP minister Suresh Rana’s public meeting at Sodepur in the North 24 Parganas district on Friday and conclude with Ananth Kumar’s meet at South Kolkata on June 18. Public meetings will be held in Kolkata, Jalpaiguri, Balurghat, Barrackpore, Asansol, Burdwan, Siliguri, Malda, South 24 Parganas, Bishnupur and Howrah.
However, State BJP president Dilip Ghosh claimed that the programmes were not decided in Bhubaneswar. “This has nothing to do with the Bhubaneswar national executive meeting. In this 16-day government programme, we will highlight the achievements of three years of the Narendra Modi government. However, Trinamool Congress goons have destroyed a tent erected to receive Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das in Durgapur. I am here to oversee its repair,” he said.
Asked whether the saffron party would try to consolidate its urban vote bank with the programme, Ghosh was evasive and said: “If the programmes are not held in cities, how will village people come from all sides to attend them?” Asked about the party’s preparations for the 2018 panchayat elections, the BJP State president said that massive booth-level preparations are underway. “We are forming booth-level committees so that we can give candidates for every booth during the rural polls,” he added.