KOLKATA: Aiming to secure victory in more seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP’s national president J P Nadda will start visiting the state this month. Sources in the BJP said the two heavyweights will visit the state on two separate days in January.
Shah is likely to come on January 17 and address rallies in Mathurapur in South 24 Parganas and Arambagh in Hooghly. Shah and Nadda will address 24 rallies in 2023 in the state’s Lok Sabha constituencies where the saffron camp failed to perform impressively in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“The two national leaders will address all the parliamentary constituencies across the country that have been identified as weak for the party. As part of this, Amitji and Naddaji will visit the state. Naddaji is likely to come a few days before Shah,’’ said a BJP leader.
In 2023, Shah and Nadda are scheduled to visit 12 Lok Sabha constituencies each to cover all 24 Lok Sabha seats, which the party did not win in the 2019 general elections. The BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and is aiming to bag more seats in 2024.
Sukanta Majumdar, BJP’s West Bengal president, said with the nearing of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Shah and Nadda would address most of the rallies. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also address those constituencies that are not considered as our party’s strongholds,’’ he said.
The 24 constituencies, where Shah and Nadda will address, are located in south Bengal. The BJP bagged seven Lok Sabha seats out of eight in north Bengal in 2019. “In south Bengal’s 24 seats, we won 11. Our party made deep inroads in north Bengal but our performance was not good enough in south Bengal,” said a BJP leader.
Reacting to BJP’s initiative by bringing Shah and Nadda in a series of rallies, Trinamool Congress’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said it would not help the saffron camp. “BJP can
organise 400 rallies, but their divisive politics will again be rejected by Bengal’s electorates,’’ he said.