NEW DELHI: Stepping up the poll campaign in West Bengal, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah will address a rally in Midnapore on Saturday during which the BJP is likely to induct a few of party hoppers from the ruling TMC and the CPI (M).
Shah, who is closely monitoring the BJP’s preparations for the next year’s West Bengal Assembly elections, will be visiting Kolkata and Medinipur also.
The BJP is likely to induct state’s political heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari during the rally in the presence of Shah, besides a couple from the ranks of the Left parties.
Shah is also learnt to have constituted a team consisting of Union ministers and party leaders to closely monitor the party’s poll preparations in specific regions of the state.
On Sunday, Shah is scheduled to visit the Visva- Bharati university in Shantiniketan and then have lunch at the house of a Baul singer. Shah’s visit will come close on the heels of the BJP chief J P Nadda visiting the state.
The two are likely to pay regular visits to the poll-bound state, with eyes on triggering defections from the ranks of TMC. Nadda was on a day-long visit to Bengal in October and came on a two-day tour last week, while Shah was in the state in November.
SC breather to five Bengal BJP leaders
The Supreme Court on Friday restrained the West Bengal Police from taking coercive action against five state BJP leaders, who approached the apex court alleging that they have been slapped with false cases to prevent them from holding political gatherings in the state that is set to go to elections next year.
The court asked the state police not to act against Arun Singh, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Pawan Singh, Sourav Singh and Mukul Roy, while it issued notices on their plea to transfer the probe in all the cases to an independent investigating agency.
Speaker bid to stall Resignation
Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee (pic) on Friday said he is not accepting rebel TMC MLA Suvendu Adhikari’s resignation letter because of “procedural flaws”.
Banerjee has asked Suvendu to meet him on Monday. Suvendu said that he would meet Banerjee to handover his resignation letter.