KOLKATA: Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Legislative Assembly Suvendu Adhikari kickstarted his campaign against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her home ground Bhabanipur in south Kolkata on Thursday.
Bhabanipur will go for vote in the second phase scheduled on 29 April.
BJP's Suvendu visited several municipal wards in Bhabanipur this morning to reach out to the voters in second face-off between the two rival political giants after Nandigram.
Suvendu had defeated Mamata in Nandigram constituency of East Midnapore district in 2021 assembly polls by a narrow margin of around 2000 votes. Mamata late won against her nearest BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal with a huge margin of around 58,000 votes in 2021 by-polls in Bhabanipur. Trinamool Congress had fielded her in Bhabanipur after the sitting MLA Sobhandeb Chatterjee resigned same year.
Suvendu along with his party workers started campaigns at ward number 70 under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and visited Chakraberia market.
He alongside his party leader Tapas Roy and others spoke to common people in the market area and wanted to know whether the latter are facing any trouble created allegedly by local Trinamool Congress. In some areas BJP supporters garlanded the opposition leader by beating drums.
Tension mounted up in the area when some Trinamool Congress workers were seen shouting slogans like ‘Mamata Banerjee zindabad’ and ‘jai Bangla,’ but with prompt intervention of police no untoward incident took place.
BJP for the first time opened its party office at Chakraberia after the party nominated Suvendu against Mamata in Bhabanipur.
After short round-up in the constituency he held a meeting with the party workers and local leaders at the party office. The leaders informed him alleging they are getting threat calls from unknown numbers from local Bhabanipur police station.
Suvendu staged protest at the police station urging police to carry out their duties as per law impartially for free and peaceful elections.