Union Home Minister and BJP’s supreme strategist – Amit Shah was on a two-day visit to West Bengal yesterday and today, in the run-up to the all-important Assembly polls scheduled for early next year, the Home Minister is said to have taken the lead for the saffron party’s campaign in Bengal, and as such, had arrived in the state to take stock of the BJP’s organisational preparedness to fight the elections which would require excessive campaigning and physical toil if the TMC regime is to be thrown out of power. As the elections in the state come closer, the BJP has certainly not stopped working on its existing strong-points.
The tribals from the state of West Bengal had resoundingly supported the saffron party in last year’s Lok Sabha polls. The BJP has come to be perceived as the party which counts tribals of the state as an important part of the electorate. The BJP knows that the tribals can help the party greatly in its endeavour to have Mamata Banerjee and her government unseated from power next year. Therefore, the party is working to consolidate its position among the state’s tribals. To the same effect, Home Minister Amit Shah visited Bankura district yesterday, a region from where the BJP in 2019 had won both Lok Sabha seats.
While in Bankura, Amit Shah inaugurated and paid floral tributes at a statue said to be that of the iconic tribal revolutionary – Veer Birsa Munda. Most importantly, however, the Home Minister arrived for lunch at the house of a tribal BJP worker in Chaturdihi village of Bankura district. Images of Amit Shah sitting on the floor, alongside the top guns of BJP’s Bengal unit, have sent out a clear message which will resonate with the people of Bengal, more so with the state’s tribals, who have been primary victims of the TMC rule over the past ten years.
While at Bankura, the Home Minister launched a scathing attack against the TMC government of Bengal and said that it had deprived people of the state, particularly the poor, from the benefits of various central schemes. It must be mentioned that Mamata Banerjee has disallowed various central schemes from being rolled out in the state and has introduced her own variants to the same. Amit Shah said that there was palpable wrath against the TMC regime. The Home Minister reminded the people how they had been deprived of PM Awaas Yojana, and as a result, of houses. Further, he also said that the farmers of Bengal were not getting 6000 rupees per month from the Centre because Mamata Banerjee has been blocking the same.
There lies much significant symbolism behind the visit of Amit Shah to tribal and Matua houses. The tribal population of both north Bengal and south Bengal, and the Matuas too had voted largely in support of the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and the saffron party is determined to secure their consolidated votes for the upcoming elections. By visiting tribal households, having meals therein, and launching attacks against the Mamata-government from a district like Bankura, Amit Shah and the BJP are sending out just the required messages, and are therefore striking a chord with the people of Bengal.