Amit Shah to launch 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign in West Bengal today

Union minister of home affairs Amit Shah will arrive in West Bengal on Friday afternoon to launch the campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha election in the state and address a rally in Birbhum, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders said.

According to the party leaders, Shah will reach the Andal airport at 12.30pm and from there, he will visit Birbhum’s Siuri town where he is slated to address a public rally.

Shah will also garland a statue of B R Ambedkar and inaugurate a new party office in Siuri before leaving for Kolkata around 4pm, people familiar with the matter said.

The home minister will also visit the Dakshineswar temple near Kolkata at 6.20pm, said the BJP. Later in the evening, Shah will hold a closed-door meeting with state BJP leaders at a hotel on the eastern outskirts of Kolkata. The home minister is scheduled to leave the Bengal capital on Saturday morning, people said.

Although panchayat elections in Bengal are likely to be announced any day, the BJP has kept its focus on the Lok Sabha seats. In 2019, the party won 18 of 42 seats in West Bengal.

“Amit Shah is definitely the most successful election strategist in India right now. His visit is significant,” Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.

Meanwhile, in an apparent bid to counter the BJP, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has planned a rally at the same venue in Siuri on Sunday.

Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, who will address the TMC rally, said, “Our programme was planned in advance. The party’s district committee took the decision.”

Birbhum district has grabbed headlines in recent years due to electoral violence, coal and cattle smuggling scams, and school recruitment scams, in which multiple leaders, including a few top leaders of the ruling party, are facing charges from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate.

“Choosing Birbhum as a venue for Shah’s rally is a coincidence. But one can expect that he will unleash a scathing attack on the ruling party,” a state BJP leader said.

Further, the BJP has also planned a massive campaign in which Prime Minster Narendra Modi, Union home minister Shah and the party’s national President J P Nadda will take the lead by addressing around 40 rallies in 2023, Bengal leaders said.