Bengal BJP outlines outreach strategy focusing on Mamata's constituency

Kolkata: The BJP in West Bengal has outlined a special two-pronged outreach programme focusing only on the Bhawanipur Assembly constituency in south Kolkata, which is represented by none other than Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Political observers feel that this constituency-specific outreach programme to be steered by the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly. Suvendu Adhikari, is clearly aimed at diverting the Chief Minister's attention from the overall administrative responsibilities and state-wide political activities to her own Assembly constituency.

The first part of the strategy, according to a member of BJP's state committee, will be a campaign on the development works undertaken by the Union government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014.

"Special booklets will be released and distributed among the voters of Bhawanipur. Considering the cosmopolitan nature of the constituency, the booklets will be printed in six different languages, namely Bangla, Hindi, English, Maithili, Gujrtai and Gurmukhi," the state committee member said.

The second part of the strategy will be to conduct a community Durga Puja in the constituency this year that will be sponsored by the state unit of the party.

"The biggest festival of West Bengal and Bengalis is an ideal time and occasion for mass outreach programmes and hence this year we will be organising one community Durga Puja in Bhawanipur," he said.

The results in Bhawanipur have been quite fluctuating since 2014. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the constituency gave a marginal lead to the BJP candidate. However, in the 2016 Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee won by a massive margin of over 25,000 votes.

Again in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Trinamool Congress' lead margin came down to less than 4,000 votes. However, in the 2021 Assembly polls, the ruling party's victory margin from the same Assembly constituency rose to over 55,000 votes.