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Amit Shah to flag off BJP’s final rath yatra in poll-bound Bengal today
This is Shah’s second visit to the poll-bound state within a week. He had come to West Bengal for one day on February 11
Union home minister Amit Shah, who is in West Bengal on a two-day visit to bolster the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign, will flag off the party’s fifth and final rath yatra on Thursday.
This is Shah’s second visit to the poll-bound state within a week. He had come to West Bengal for one day on February 11.
“Shah is scheduled to flag off the fifth and final parivartan rath yatra today [Thursday] from Namkhana in South 24 Parganas district. He will also visit the Kapil Muni Ashram on Sagar Island and Bharat Sevashram Sangha in Kolkata,” said a BJP leader.
The union home minister will have lunch with a with refugee family at Narayanpur village in South 24 Parganas. Thereafte, he will attend a road show before coming back to Kolkata.
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“Shah also has a set of programmes to attend on Friday before he flies back to New Delhi,” said a BJP leader.
While Shah is scheduled to flag off the rath yatra around 12.50pm, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee, her nephew, will address a rally around the same time in the same district to launch a counter offensive.
The crucial state assembly elections are due in March-April this year and the BJP has set a target of winning more than 200 seats out of the 294 seats this time. The TMC has, however, claimed that the BJP will not make it to the double digits.
A BJP leader, associated with the planning of the fifth rath yatra, said that the final rath yatra will be a direct challenge to the chief minister and her nephew.
“The fifth rath yatra will pass through two prestigious constituencies, Diamond Harbour and South Kolkata. While the former is the constituency of TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee, South Kolkata is the home turf of the chief minister. Mamata Banerjee is the MLA of Bhawanipur assembly constituency in South Kolkata,” the BJP leader said.
Plans are afoot to take the rally through Sirakol in Diamond Harbour, the spot where the convoy of BJP national president JP Nadda was attacked on December 10, 2020.
According to BJP leaders, the rath yatra will initially take off as a small one from the Kapil Muni ashram in Sagar Island, where Shah is scheduled to visit. Millions of pilgrims congregate at Ganga Sagar every year in mid-January to take a holy dip at the confluence of confluence of River Ganges and the Bay of Bengal in the southern tip of West Bengal during the Ganga Sagar mela.
