Shah was in West Bengal for a two-day visit to take stock of his party’s affairs ahead of the Assembly elections slated to be held in the next few months. BJP feels that they have an opportunity to win the State 294-member Assembly as the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress (TMC) faces a strong anti-incumbency of her ten-year government.
In a tweet upon his arrival in Kolkata, Amit Shah wrote, “I bow to this revered land of greats like Gurudev Tagore, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Syama Prasad Mookerjee.” In fact, during his recent last visit, he had performed puja at the Dakshineshwar Temple and during this trip, he visited Swami Vivekananda’s ancestral house in North Kolkata on Saturday morning. Every public rally which Shah addressed ended with a slogan of “Jai Shri Ram”, a direct attack of Mamata who detests this slogan.
West Bengal BJP unit Chief Dilip Ghosh has said that Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah will visit the State every month and stay for at least seven days till the State Assembly elections get over by May 2021. “Amit Shah’s visit duration will be increased from 2021. Now he is staying two days. He will stay seven days in a month,” said Dilip Ghosh who also announced that BJP president JP Nadda would visit the State every month till the Assembly elections, likely in April-May next year. Nadda, during his visit in the second week of December, had announced in a press conference that the people of Bengal will remove Mamata Banerjee lock, stock and barrel and BJP will get 200 plus seats in the State. Shah’s visit also ruffled many feathers in Mamata’s, Congress and the Left camps. Several party leaders and heavyweights deserted their party to join the BJP as they feel that the Bengal electorate is moving out of the clutches of TMC, Left and the Congress.
Led by Suvendu Adhikari, former minister in charge of Transport, Irrigation and Water Resources in the West Bengal government, six sitting legislators of the TMC and four others from the Left and the Congress joined the BJP on Saturday afternoon in the presence of Amit Shah at a massive rally in Midnapore town in Bengal’s West Midnapore district. The Adhikaris, over the last two decades, have dominated the politics of the Midnapore area, repeatedly winning Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha seats in the area, and building a solid base for the TMC there and beyond in the State.
Family patriarch and Suvendu’s father Sisir Adhikari, who is now in his third term in Lok Sabha, also won Assembly elections in the State thrice, is a Member of Parliament in Lok Sabha from TMC representing Kanthi since 2009. He is also a former Union Minister of State for Rural Development in the Manmohan Singh government. Among the 10 MLAs who switched sides, Suvendu Adhikari is the only one who has submitted his resignation though it has not been accepted yet on technical grounds. Interestingly, veteran leader Bani Singha Roy from Howrah district, who is one of the founder vice-presidents of the TMC, also joined the BJP. Singha Roy had spoken out against Mamata’s leadership last week for the first time.
Among others who joined the BJP are retired army colonel Diptangshu Chowdhury, who had quit the BJP in 2017 and joined the TMC. For him it was a “homecoming”. On Thursday he had resigned from the posts of chairman of the South Bengal State Transport Corporation and advisor to the monitoring cell on programme implementation of govt welfare services in the chief minister’s office at the Writer’s Building. A total of 60 other Councillors and Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti members from various parties switched to saffron in the presence of Shah, whom Adhikari referred to as “my elder brother”.
For Mamata, it is nervous times and it will be really tough for her to keep her flock together as the momentum of leaving the ruling TMC has been taken up with a big stride. Political analysts have mentioned that her arrogance and appeasement of the minority committee is likely to affect Mamata and it would not be surprising if more people jump out of the “sinking boat”. Time is running out for Mamata and BJP is on a full offensive mood to dislodge the W Bengal govt through the electorate in the upcoming State Assembly elections. With this, BJP could well have problems of plenty in West Bengal.
