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BJP to launch ‘Save Bengal’ campaign in Delhi this weekend to target non-resident Bengalis
A trilingual portal titled Save Bengal Save Democracy will be launched on Saturday.
In order to build public opinion in favour of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, the party will kick off a new campaign with the slogan #SaveBengal that will be launched in New Delhi on November 24.
The campaign will aim at ‘building awareness’ among Bengalis living in major cities outside Bengal about the ‘lack of democratic space’ in the state so that these people could, in turn, influence the opinion of their relatives and friends living in Bengal.
Read: Bengal BJP leaders write to ECI seeking poll panel’s help to organise rath yatra in the state
A web portal titled Save Bengal Save Democracy will be launched on Saturday.
The trilingual portal in English, Bengali and Hindi will contain articles and reports on Bengal’s socio-political issues, images and videos to prove their contention that democracy is at stake in West Bengal.
An 11-minute documentary film would be first screened during the event in New Delhi. Later it will be shown to select Bengali audiences in major cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Gurugram and Lucknow.
Read: BJP plans rath yatra covering all constituencies in Bengal in December, January
A ‘theme song’ in Bengali has also been readied.
While BJP has been using the hashtag #SaveBengal on Twitter for several months now, the campaign started taking shape during Durga puja, when nearly 200 flexes with the ‘Save Bengal’ slogan were put up outside puja pandals in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and other prominent cities.
“We are facing a malicious campaign in Bengal, where all three other major parties are our opponent. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being vilified by the Trinamool Congress, the Left and the Congress. The campaign aims to consolidate the voices of all Bengalis against decades of misrule by the Congress, the Left and now the Trinamool,” said Anirban Ganguly, director of Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, a Delhi-based BJP think-tank that is working on the campaign.
Read: TMC worker killed in Bengal, fifth political worker to be murdered since Durga Puja
Ganguly is also a member of BJP’s central policy research wing.
In the event scheduled at Deputy Speaker Hall in the Constitution Club of India, BJP’s national joint general secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash, who oversees the party’s Bengal unit, state unit president Dilip Ghosh, Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta and BJP’s national policy research wing member Anirban Ganguly will discuss the present condition of West Bengal with former Air Marshal Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyaya and retired Major General of the Army, P K Mallick.
“We need to inform people around India about the complete breakdown of democratic atmosphere in Bengal. As many as 90 political murders have taken place since April this year and 37 of the victims are our organisers,” alleged Dilip Ghosh.
Read: Bankim Chandra to Swami Vivekananda: Icons are BJP’s new weapon in Bengal
A team of Bengalis living outside the state has been formed to coordinate activities across the country. The team is made of Animesh Biswas (former core committee member of BJP’s national intellectual cell), Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya (associate professor of Japanese Studies in Delhi University), Susanta Kar (BJP’s IT cell convenor of western Uttar Prasdesh), Shoumendu Mukherji (advocate), Shantanu Mukherjee (advocate), Debapriya Choudhury (documentary filmmaker) and Malayendu Mukherjee (retired Air Force officer).
“We’ll be holding similar events in the cities of Bengaluru, Mumbai and other cities with significant Bengali population. When prominent Bengalis tell their friends and relatives in Bengal how better their lives have been outside Bengal, especially in states ruled by BJP, the misconception about BJP created by our opponents in Bengal will be cleared,” said Syed Tanveer Nasreen, head of the department, history and women’s studies, University of Burdwan, and a member of Bengal BJP’s intellectual cell.
In the later phase of the campaign, teams composed of prominent non-resident Bengalis will visit the state as members of ‘independent fact-finding committee’ if and when incidents of violence take places.
