The West Bengal BJP is leaving no stone unturned to encash the growing popularity of Gujarat chief minister and party prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi particularly among young voters and bringing him again for poll campaign to the state.
BJP state secretary Ritesh Tewari said Modi will address two public meetings on Sunday and three on May 7 in West Bengal respectively. On Sunday, Modi will hold a public meeting at Bankura to campaign for BJP nominee Dr. Subhash Sarkar. This is a high profile constituency from where the sitting CPM MP Basudev Acharya had been elected nine times and TMC candidate is Bengali cinema’s glamour queen Moon Moon Sen, daughter of movie legend late Suchitra Sen.
His second meeting will be at Asansol Lok Sabha constituency where popular Bollywood playback singer and BJP nominee Babul Supriyo has become extremely popular. Asansol being an area with large number of coal mines has a substantial number of Hindi speaking voters, majority of whom have this time shifted their support towards the BJP.
The sitting CPM MP here is Bangshogopal Chowdhury and the TMC has fielded one of its heavyweight trade union woman leader Dola Sen, one of the close confidantes of West Bengal chief minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee.
Because of Babul’s growing popularity after he filed his nomination and began campaigning in unconventional manner even at times driving a motorcycle himself, the local TMC leadership has been worried and attacked his convoy. He has also been implicated in a criminal case under the Arms Act though the police could not produce any weapon seized from him.A written complaint by two local TMC leaders was lodged alleging Babul visited some temples in an inebriated state. After an inquiry the additional district magistrate of Bardhaman district gave Babul a clean chit. While Babul has decided to file a defamation suit against the TMC leaders, these incidents have increased his popularity among the people in Asansol leading to an additional sympathy wave in his favour. He is considered a dark horse and might sail through the polls on May 7.
Tewari said on May 7, Modi will hold three public meetings at Krishnanagar, Barasat and in Kolkata North constituencies respectively.
The BJP nominee for Krishnangagar Lok Sabha seat Satyabrata Mukherjee had won in 1999 and had been a minister in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet.
Mukherjee is popular in the area because of his developmental work as minister and the BJP has a strong organisation in Nadia district within which Krishnanagar falls. His next meeting will be at Barasat for BJP nominee and internationally famous magician P C Sorcar and for party’s candidate for Basirhat Lok Sabha seat Shamik Bhattacharya. Both Barasat and Basirhat are in North 24 Parganas district where too the BJP has a large network of workers since a long time.
Nadia and North 24 Parganas have borders with Bangladesh and infiltration and smuggling are a big menace for the local population. State BJP leaders said all these five meetings to be addressed by Modi were not scheduled but after the huge success witnessed at Sreerampur on April 27, the party decided to “encash” his popularity.