Amit Shah and JP Nadda likely to visit Bengal ahead of Durga Puja: Dilip Ghosh

KOLKATA: BJP chief Amit Shah and its working president J P Nadda is likely to visit Bengal ahead of Durga puja to look into the organisational aspects and propagate about the abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, party state president Dilip Ghosh said on Thursday.

Nadda is likely to visit Bengal on September 27, to address a program on the abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir that gave it special status, Ghosh said.

Ghosh, who returned from New Delhi on Thursday morning, after a meeting on the party affairs in the state at Shah's residence Wednesday night, said he is likely to visit Bengal during or after Mahalayas to inaugurate Durga pujas.

There are several puja committees who have expressed their desire to have Amit Shah inaugurate the festivities.

"We have informed Amit Shah ji about it, he has said he will look into the requests. Nothing has been finalised," Ghosh said while addressing a press conference here.

"We have been organizing programs and seminars across the country to sensitize the masses about our decision to abolish Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. So as a part of it we have been organizing programs in Bengal too. On September 27 there will be a program on the abolition of Article 370.J P Naddaji will address it," Ghosh said.

This will be Nadda's first visit to Bengal after taking over as working president of the party.

According to state BJP sources, during his visit, Nadda will also take stock of the organisational matter of the state unit and also ground level political situation in Bengal.

"Our party leadership has big plans for Bengal. After our stupendous success in the last Lok Sabha polls and in our recent membership drive when we clocked nearly 80 lakh members in the state, Bengal is one of the focus states of the party. Amit Shahji and Naddaji during their visit will take stock of the organisational aspects with an eye on 2021 assembly polls," a senior state BJP leader said.

The BJP in last few years has made deep inroads in Bengal and has come up as main challenger of TMC in Bengal, by pushing the traditional Congress and Left Front to distant third and fourth position respectively.

The BJP in 2019 Parliamentary elections bagged 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state just four less than the ruling TMC.

The TMC's tally has come down from 34 in 2014 to 22 seats in this election.