Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off Eastern India’s first Vande Bharat Express in West Bengal Friday, 30 December, in what is being seen as an early launch of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) campaign in the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He will also attend a meeting of states in the West Bengal capital, to take stock of the Union government’s Namami Gange conservation project.
This will be the PM’s first visit to Kolkata since the end of the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections 20 months back, which the BJP had lost to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress by a wide margin. Modi had campaigned extensively in the state in the run-up to the elections.
Modi’s upcoming Kolkata visit will also see him share the dais with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for first time in nearly two years. The last time the two were seen together was when they had both attended Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 150 birth anniversary celebrations at Victoria Memorial in January 2021. Banerjee had then walked off the stage without speaking, after being greeted with slogans of “Jai Sri Ram”.
While addressing the media Wednesday, Banerjee confirmed she would be attending the PM’s Namami Gange meeting.
Modi’s packed Kolkata visit comes at a time when the BJP is gearing up for the panchayat polls scheduled to be held in the state early next year.
With Home Minister Amit Shah making his maiden visit to the Bengal BJP headquarters ten days back, while in Kolkata to chair an Eastern Zonal Council meet, and PM Modi’s Friday visit to the state, BJP cadres are hoping for the big boost from the party’s central leadership, which they claimed had been missing since the 2021 assembly poll results.
BJP MP Locket Chatterjee told ThePrint that while so far the PM didn’t have any political events scheduled on the sidelines of his official engagements, his visit will definitely boost the morale of the BJP’s state cadres.
“The Prime Minister has always given importance to West Bengal. During the election (in 2021), he connected with the karyakartas and now with him coming to Kolkata after the elections shows that he thinks about Bengal. In fact, he will flag off the first Vande Bharat express in East India here in West Bengal, which will operate from South Bengal to North Bengal. This shows how Bengal has always been a priority for him and most definitely this will boost the confidence of the BJP workers ahead of the (panchayat) elections,” she said.
Modi’s Kolkata visit also coincides with a perceived tone down in the Trinamool Congress’ earlier strident attack on the BJP.
The West Bengal CM had met Shah on the sidelines of the Eastern Zonal Council meet during his visit to Kolkata. She also attended the G20 meeting chaired by Modi earlier this month to discuss India’s G20 presidency and solicit suggestions for next year’s Summit, and had a closed-door meeting with the PM in August at the national capital.
While senior officials in the government said the state was keen to have its MNREGA and GST dues cleared, to ease its debt burden, Trinamool leaders maintained the PM’s Bengal visit will have zero impact on the BJP’s electoral fate in the state.
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PM’s visit will have no impact: TMC
Pointing to the fact that Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and many other senior BJP leaders had visited West Bengal to campaign in the run-up to last year’s assembly elections, but had failed to sway the electoral results in their favour, Trinamool leaders claimed the Prime Minister coming for one day to Kolkata, was not likely to have any impact, because of the BJP’s “weak organisational structure” in the state.
Going on to highlight that the Vande Bharat Express will complete its journey from the state’s Howrah to New Jalpaiguri in eight hours, like the existing Satabdi Express, the TMC called the flag off a “gimmick”.
“The Prime Minister should first concentrate on the infrastructure. The railways infrastructure is so poor that the Vande Bharat, his pet project, won’t be able to run on high speed here and so will take the same time as the Shatabdi Express. So, what’s the use of inaugurating this train?” alleged TMC vice president Joy Prakash Majumdar.
Political analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay too dismissed any political impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to West Bengal.
“This is a routine programme and there will be no place for any political messaging. If at all, Amit Shah’s meeting with BJP leaders at the party headquarters in Kolkata (earlier this month), followed by a one-on-one meeting with Mamata Banerjee could send out a message to the BJP workers here in the state ahead of Panchayat and 2024 polls,” said Bandopadhyay.
The BJP has, meanwhile, welcomed the perceived tone down in the West Bengal CM’s attitude towards the BJP and the Union government. The PM and Banerjee have been known to exchange barbs in the past.
“In a federal structure, the state and Centre both work for the development of the people. But Mamata Banerjee’s ego deprived the people of Bengal from Central schemes. She knows, if only she has a cordial tie with the Centre will the money stuck in New Delhi be released. There is no point now thinking of the past, the fact that she has realised, is a welcome move and will only help develop Bengal further,” said MP Locket Chatterjee.
In May this year, Banerjee wrote to PM Modi against the Centre’s alleged delay in releasing funds allocated to the state under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the PM Awas Yojana schemes, seeking his intervention in the matter.
Her government has also written to the Prime Minister’s Office regarding GST dues, and Mamata herself raised before the PM the issue of Rs 27,000 crore pending in GST dues during a NITI Aayog meeting in August.
(Edited by: V S Chandrasekar)
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