KOLKATA: BJP President Amit Shah will himself preside over meetings every three months to review the party's ground work in West Bengal in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Accordingly, strategies and targets for the state unit of the party may also change after every review meeting, party sources revealed.
While the BJP President may not always come to West Bengal for the review meetings, he might summon the state leadership to Delhi or conduct the review meetings through video-conference. Shah had last year set the target for Bengal BJP to win 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 but increased it by 10 seats after BJP's performance in panchayat election and Maheshtala Assembly by-election.
"The entire operation of growth of BJP in West Bengal is overseen by Amit Shah. We registered massive growth by following his instructions of adopting booth-wise approach and door-to-door campaign to popularise the work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and making people understand the need for change in regime in the state," a BJP leader said.
Political analysts believe the move is significant and shows BJP's increased focus on West Bengal. "Amit Shah knows that unlike the cow belt, only hardcore Hindutva will not yield results in West Bengal where Trinamool Congress has deep-rooted support base due to welfare schemes and infrastructure development.
Hence, the decision to change strategies and targets in a trial-and-error method is a very mature move. Though the BJP's target for 2019 Lok Sabha elections seem unrealistic, setting higher targets will ultimately benefit the party and act as motivation for the party," political analyst Dipanjan Guha said.
TMC party insiders stated that the party leadership was worried after BJP's performance in western districts of the state in the panchayat elections. TMC transferred and changed party's block-level leaders and even a section of district administration after BJP swept rural parts of Jhargram district in the panchayat elections.