Amit Shah will hold a series of meetings in Kolkata and Howrah today after he lands at around 11 am
BJP chief Amit Shah has been quoted as saying his party will win majority of Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in 2019. In fact, he is reported to have even stated a figure - 22 out of 42 seats in the state - claims that Mamata Banerjee's ruling Trinamool Congress has disparagingly dismissed. Today, Amit Shah will be in Kolkata to set the ball rolling towards the target he has set it for the general elections.
Amit Shah will hold a series of meetings in Kolkata and Howrah today after he lands at around 11 am. Only one of the interactions is open to the media - between Mr Shah and the city's intellectuals - and all eyes are on who all will attend.
On Thursday, before going to Purulia for a public rally, Amit Shah will take a helicopter ride to a temple at Tarapith in Birbhum district, offer prayers and meet local BJP leaders.
Birbhum is a key district where the BJP has made some in-roads in the May panchayat polls.
But the Purulia rally is the red-letter event in his calendar. After making a serious splash in the rural polls in that district, the BJP chief is likely to mention the deaths of the two BJP workers, found hanging on May 30 and June 2 respectively.
The motive for the hanging of 20-year-old Trilochan Mahato appears to be his links with the BJP. Scrawled on the back and front of his white T-Shirt was a chilling message, repeated in a note found on a piece of paper left at his feet dangling just inches from the ground. Roughly translated, the messages said, "This is for doing BJP politics from age 18. Been trying to kill you since the vote. Failed. Today you are dead."
The BJP and the Trilochan Mahato's family went to court last week demanding a CBI probe. Within days, Bengal's Criminal Investigation Department arrested a 45-year-old neighbour for the murder, one Panjabi Mahato. Police are yet to confirm a motive for the murder. The Mahatos and BJP claim he is a Trinamool worker and no one named in their police complaint has been arrested.
The West Bengal police has quoted the post mortem report of the second death of Dulal Kumar and said he committed suicide. His family has ruled out the possibility and also demanded a CBI probe.
The BJP has already started campaigning against the Trinamool and blame it for killing the two men. Adding grist to their mill is Trinamool lawmaker Abhishek Banerjee's warning just one day before Trilochan Mahato's murder that he would personally ensure Purulia district was opposition-free.
Amit Shah's visit is his first after the panchayat polls in West Bengal, in which the BJP came a distant second to the Trinamool, but second nevertheless.
A week before Amit Shah's visit, CBI special director Rakesh Asthana was in Kolkata and expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of investigation into the Saradha chit fund scam and the Narada sting operation which allegedly exposed corruption in the Trinamool. The officer heading the probes has been transferred and the CBI's Kolkata wing told to file chargesheets in all the cases by the end of 2018.