KOLKATA: Union Home minister Amit Shah is likely to chair three organisational meetings during his West Bengal visit before Durga Puja to take stock of the situation ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections. One of the meetings will be held in north Bengal and two others in south Bengal.
"The date of the Home minister's Bengal visit is yet to be finalised. This time booth-level foot soldiers of our party will participate in the organisational meeting with Shah. It will boost their energy to go all out before the 2021 Assembly elections," said BJP's Bengal chapter president Dilip Ghosh.
The Bengal functionaries of the saffron camp said the issues to be placed before Shah have already been finalised. "It is expected that the former national president of the party will show us a roadmap to topple the Trinamool Congress-led government. He will give us a guideline on what are the issues to be highlighted during our campaign against the TMC and what are not be portrayed," said a BJP leader.
Sources in the BJP said the present issues that are hurting the people of Bengal will be discussed with Shah to decide the party's strategy and launch an aggressive campaign against chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
"In our last meeting with the party national leadership on October 1 in Delhi, we have been told not to talk much about Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) now. Instead, it is important to highlight TMC-led government’s misrule and other issues related to the state's affairs," said a BJP leader.
Referring to the recovery of a firearm during the BJP's protest march on Thursday in Kolkata and Howrah, Ghosh said the gun was in possession of a private security guard of a BJP leader.
"It was not an illegal firearm. A license was issued by the administration of Rajauri in Uttarakhand," he said.
The police, however, lodged an FIR against 20 odd BJP leaders, which include the party's central observer for Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya and national vice president Mukul Roy, accusing them of organising unlawful assembly and attacking policemen.