Amit Shah to hold BJP organisational meetings during two-day Bengal visit

Union Home Minister Amit Shah

will hold organisational meetings with BJP activists in Bankura and Kolkata during his two-day visit to West Bengal from November 5, a senior party leader said on Saturday.

A preparatory meeting was organised by the state BJP in the evening, party sources said.

"Amit Shah Ji will arrive at Andal airport in Paschim Barddhaman district on the night of November 4. He will visit Bankura the next day and hold an organisational meeting with BJP leaders of the two Medinipur districts, Birbhum, Purulia and Bankura.

"He will visit Kolkata on November 6 and hold a meeting with the state leaders," West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.

There is a proposal of Shah holding a press conference in Kolkata but nothing has been finalised yet, party sources said.

Asked whether Shah's visit is purely organisational or he will look into the allegations of worsening law and order situation in West Bengal, state BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu said they will take up the matter of political killings with him.

"It was during Amit Shah Ji's tenure as the BJP chief that we have tasted so much success in West Bengal. He is now the Union home minister. Every day, our party workers are getting killed. We will take up the matter of political killings with him," Basu said.

Shah, along with BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, vice-president Mukul Roy and state chief Dilip Ghosh, will interact with booth and district-level leaders, sources said.

This will be Shah's first visit to the state since the COVID-19 outbreak. He had visited the state on March 1.

The home minister's visit next week assumes significance with Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar criticising the "worsening" law and order situation in the state.

State BJP leaders have also been demanding the imposition of President's Rule, citing "breakdown of the rule of law".

Dhankhar had on Thursday met Shah in New Delhi and discussed the "state of affairs" in West Bengal.

Shah's visit comes just days after the party's state unit witnessed a major organisational change, as general secretary (organisation) Subrata Chattopadhyay was removed and his deputy Amitava Chakraborty was elevated to the post by the central leadership.

After having a limited presence in the politically polarised state for decades, the BJP emerged as the main rival of the ruling Trinamool Congress, winning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the 2019 general election.

With the BJP's strength increasing manifold in the state in the last few years, where it has never been in power, party leaders have exuded confidence that the party will end Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's 10-year rule in the assembly elections.