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BJP Bengal unit gears up for Amit Shah’s rally today
Till Friday night, efforts were on to ensure that at least a dozen leaders of significance join the BJP on Saturday, according to party insiders aware of the developments.
The West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) geared up on Friday for Union home minister Amit Shah’s rally in Midnapore on Saturday where he is expected to induct leaders from the ruling party in the poll-bound state into the saffron camp even as defections in the ranks emerged as a headache for the Mamata Banerjee regime.
Till Friday night, efforts were on to ensure that at least a dozen leaders of significance join the BJP on Saturday, according to party insiders aware of the developments.
“I cannot tell you the exact number because hectic calls are being made and this will continue till the last minute. Many TMC leaders are willing to quit the party but quite a few of them are under pressure from ruling party leaders,” a senior BJP state leader told HT on condition of anonymity on Friday night.
Shah’s plane was scheduled to land in Kolkata around 11.30pm. He will be staying in a hotel in New Town in the eastern outskirts of Kolkata and attend rallies and internal meetings of the party in Kolkata, East Midnapore and Birbhum districts on Saturday and Sunday. He will also have lunch with local villagers in the two districts, BJP leaders said. Shah will return to Delhi on Sunday afternoon.
Security arrangements were beefed up by the Union home ministry and the state police in view of the stone pelting on BJP national president JP Nadda’s convoy on December 10. Shah will fly to the districts by helicopter.
Suvendu Adhikari, former minster from East Midnapore district, is the most prominent name among those likely to join the BJP on Saturday. Adhikari remained tight-lipped before the media even as BJP leaders said Z-category security was being provided to him by the Centre.
Adhikari drove to Bhubaneswar on Friday and took a flight to Delhi to meet Shah. “Suvendu and Shah will arrive in Kolkata on the same flight,” the former TMC leader’s close aide Kanishka Panda said on Friday night. Panda was expelled by the TMC earlier this week. Adhikari and his family are residents of Kanthi town. Adhikari’s father Sisir Adhikari is the local Lok Sabha MP while his elder brother Dibyendu Adhikari is the Lok Sabha member from Tamluk in the same district.
Meanwhile, Banashree Maiti, the TMC lawmaker from the Kanthi North assembly seat in East Midnapore, resigned on Friday night and said she will join the BJP on Saturday.
Retired army colonel Diptangshu Chowdhury, who quit the BJP in 2017 and joined the TMC, has stepped down from the posts of chairman of the South Bengal State Transport Corporation and advisor to the monitoring cell on programme implementation of government welfare services in the chief minister’s office. There was speculation that he, too, might return to the BJP.
Making things difficult for Adhikari, state assembly speaker Biman Banerjee announced on Friday afternoon that he will not accept the resignation of the TMC legislator on technical grounds.
When Adhikari went to the assembly house on Wednesday afternoon to submit his hand-written letter, the speaker was not present in his office. Though received by the assembly secretary, the letter raised several questions since Adhikari did not put any date on it and did not write or sign it before the speaker, something anti-defection rules of the assembly demand.
“I have asked Adhikari to appear before me at 2pm on December 21 and declare whether he voluntarily wrote the letter and when it comes into effect. If I am satisfied with his answer, I will accept the resignation,” said Banerjee.
“There is no hard and fast rule that one has to resign from the assembly before joining the BJP. They may resign later,” said a senior state BJP leader.
