Amit Shah’s rally in Howrah today, first in new term

After being re-elected as the BJP national president, Amit Shah will hold his first public meeting in Howrah’s Dumurjala here on Monday. This will be the first full-term for Mr Shah, as till now he was completing the remainder term of former party president Rajnath Singh. Mr Shah will now be the party chief until 2019. He is likely to sound the poll bugle for the upcoming Assembly elections at this rally. BJP MLA Samik Bhattacharya on Sunday said that attempts have been made by the ruling Trinamul Congress to stop BJP cadres from attending Mr Shah’s public meeting.

“Tomorrow Amit Shahji will hold his first public meeting in Howrah’s Dumurjola after being re-elected as the party president. The ruling party workers have started issuing threats to our workers and in some places they have stopped vehicles in which they were travelling to Howrah. We strongly condemn this,” Mr Bhattacharya said.

However, the BJP MLA could not give details about places where the buses were stopped. According to him, BJP workers from Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan, East Midnapore and Bankura will attend Mr Shah’s rally. Interestingly, on his last visit to the state, Mr Shah had asked the workers to prepare for the 2019 Lok Sabha election instead of concentrating on Bengal Assembly election.

This had demoralised the grassroots-level party workers as they were constantly coming under the alleged attacks of TMC workers. At the same time, some party workers had openly expressed their displeasure and engaged in a verbal duel in front of Central leaders soon after Mr Shah had addressed them in Howrah’s Sarat Sadan. However, since Dilip Ghosh took charge as state BJP president, the party organised a series of law-violation programmes across the state against the misrule of Mamata Banerjee government.

Meanwhile, Mr Bhattacharya criticised the TMC’s decision to field former state transport minister Madan Mitra, who was arrested in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam and presently in judicial custody, from his constituency in the upcoming Assembly election. “By deciding to field the tainted TMC leader from Kamarhati Assembly constituency, the TMC is sending a wrong message to the people,” he said.