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Kolkata: Ahead of the second phase of polls on April 29, the BJP campaign team in West Bengal, led by Home Minister Amit Shah, is exuding a quiet confidence. The campaign team worked late into the night on April 23, piecing together information from the 152 seats that went to polls and saw an unprecedented 92.25 per cent votes cast.
The result: the BJP is confident that it is winning 110 seats, putting it within striking distance of power in a state where it has lost five consecutive elections earlier. Party strategists say the party needs to get 38 seats in the second phase translating into a conversion rate of just 27 per cent. In the second phase, 142 seats are going to the polls.
Home Minister Amit Shah, who is camping in Kolkata and will stay till April 27 overseeing the campaign, said: “We are on our way to form a government with great majority..” He said that Bengal was the missing piece in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of “purvoday ka vikas”, and that the BJP would realise it this time.
Speaking to the media, he said that within a week of the BJP forming the Government in West Bengal, an advertisement would be issued asking those who had entered West Bengal illegally, to surrender their false identity documents and submit their fingerprints and exit the country. “After the announcement of SIR (Special Intensive Revision), as many as 7.5 lakh people had left the country,” he said.
He also promised that a “White Paper on Scams would be formulated by a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge”.
Senior BJP leaders, on condition of anonymity, said that the party’s assessment showed that in as many as eight districts, the Trinamool Congress would fail to get even one seat. “Our feedback shows that the Trinamool would not get even one seat in Purulia, Bankura, Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Alipurduar districts,” a senior leader said.
According to the party’s assessment, out of the 11 seats in Kolkata, the party could win at least five, a never-before seen achievement. On the other hand, out of the 77 seats it won last time, the BJP’s assessment shows that it might lose in five of those.
Regarding its fight in Bhabanipore constituency where Mamata Banerjee has been challenged by her bete noire Suvendu Adhikari, the leader said: “Mamata ji chose the wrong seat.” He pointed out that though the West Bengal Chief Minister had won the 2021 byeelection by 58,000 votes, that lead had come down to 8,000-odd in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. With almost 45,000 deletions due to SIR, and with more than 40,000 people from Gujarati and Marwari communities staying in Bhabanipore, the constituency has “moved away from Mamata.”
The BJP leadership is confident of winning in Panihati, where it has fielded Ratna Debnath, the mother of the RG Kar rapemurder victim but is expecting a tough fight in Hingalganj where it has fielded Rekha Patra, the face of the Sandeshkhali protests. The leader also said that its assessment showed the SIR issue would not affect its prospects in the Matua (Hindu refugees) belt which borders Bangladesh.
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