NEW DELHI: Calling for unity within the party ranks amid reports of faction-fighting, former BJP chief Amit Shah on Thursday asked the Bengal unit leaders to build the party campaign for the next year’s Assembly elections.
Shah is likely to visit Bengal before Durga Puja for giving a push to the party’s campaign. Besides Shah, BJP chief J P Nadda, Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargia took stock of the political situations with the state leadership, which included Dilip Ghosh, Mukul Roy and Rahul Sinha.
“The state unit was asked to build the ground by focusing on the issues like the Trinamool government not implementing the central schemes - Ayushman Bharat and PM Kisan Nidhi. The state unit was asked to focus on corruption at the local level,” a party insider said.
Sinha is said to be unhappy with the party brass promoting outsiders like Mukul Roy and Anupam Hazra in the state. He had even let his disappointment known after the reshuffle in the party’s ranks. Shah, who is closely following the Bengal campaign, is learnt to have asked the party leaders to close the ranks and put up an aggressive campaign without wasting time on internal bickering.
Nadda will also be camping after Durga Puja and the Bihar poll. The BJP had seen a meteoric rise in Bengal, bagging 18 Lok Sabha seats in the last general elections, and managed to wean away a large section of leaders and workers from the Trinamool ranks.
Mamata launches drive
Bengal CM Banerjee on Thursday launched a road repair drive which will cover 7,000 stretches of roads, measuring 12,000 km across the state. This project will be conducted over the next 15 days. Mamata said. “Due to Covid, work had come to a halt, but we will restart it. We will try to connect all villages to major roads,’’ the TMC supremo said.