Amit Shah to hold rally in Purnia today, chair key BJP meet in Kishanganj

This is Shah’s first visit to Bihar after chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) swapped BJP for Lalu Yadav’s RJD and other parties as allies and formed a new government in the state last month.

Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah will address a rally in Purnia and later hold a meeting of his party’s legislators and members of Parliament (MPs) from Bihar in Kishanganj on Friday, the first day of his two-day visit to Seemanchal region having a significant Muslim population, which is being seen as the beginning of BJP’s campaign for the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah. (HT_PRINT)

This is Shah’s first visit to Bihar after chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JD-U) swapped BJP for Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and other parties as allies and formed a new government in the state last month.

BJP has set for itself a target of winning 35 Lok Sabha seats out of the total 40 in Bihar in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

In Kishanganj, according to BJP leaders, Shah will hold discussions with all 17 Lok Sabha members (including four union ministers) of the party from Bihar, five Rajya Sabha members, all 77 MLAs, 23 MLCs and organisational office-bearers on the current political scenario in the state.

Vinod Tawde, the BJP leader from Maharashtra who was recently appointed party’s in-charge of Bihar, will also attend the meeting.

This is the first time that the BJP legislature party meeting would be held in Kishanganj. This would be followed by the meeting of BJP state core committee.

According to leaders familiar with the agenda, three core issues are going to be discussed at the legislature party meeting.

“Discussions on caste configuration will be the core agenda of the meeting, especially after the realignment and further strengthening of the M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) combination in the state. BJP is going to brainstorm on a strategy to win over smaller castes (with a population of 10-30 lakh),” said a senior party leader.

The party is also going to chalk out a new plan on at least 16 parliamentary seats which have a considerable M-Y population.

The third is organisational strengthening.

Importance of Seemanchal

In Seemanchal, which comprises four districts, BJP currently has only one MP (Araria) while JD(U) has two (Purnia and Katihar) and Congress one (Kishanganj).

In the state assembly, Seemanchal has 24 setas, of which BJP has eight, followed by five each of Congress and RJD. JD(U) has four while CPI (ML) and AIMIM have one each.

The Asaduddin Owaisi-led party had won five seats in the 2020 assembly polls, but four of its MLAs joined the RJD recently.

“Of the two Lok Sabha seats JD(U) won in 2019, Katihar was vacated by BJP whereas Purnia has been represented by JD (U) since 2014. Purnia can be retaken by BJP if it brings back its old veteran,” said a senior BJP leader, wishing not to be named.

There has been a strong buzz that BJP might bring back Uday Singh alias Pappu Singh, who has represented Purnia Lok Sabha seat twice, from 2004 to 2014, before he left the party in 2018 and joined Congress.

Border issues

The union home minister will hold meetings with the three heads of paramilitary forces, BSF, SSB and ITBP, in Kishanganj on Saturday to discuss the strategy to deal with cross-border infiltrations and other issues.

“Amit Shah, during his last visit to Bihar on July 31, had said he would like to visit Kishanganj and look into the problems of the area. His meeting was planned at that time only,” said BJP MLC Dilip Jaiswal.

Officials familiar with the matter said that director generals of BSF (which mans Indo-Bangladesh border, 14 kms from Kishanganj), SSB (manning Indo-Nepal border) and ITBP (on China border near Doklam), besides top intelligence officials, will prepare a micro-management strategy on infiltration and other issues.