Siliguri/Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched on the three ‘T’s close to North Bengal’s heart — tea, tourism and timber — and tied them up with those affecting Bengal as a whole, like the Trinamool’s “corruption” and misrule”, as he made yet another targeted appeal to women in his first election rally in North Bengal in Siliguri on Saturday.
Modi, in his fourth campaign speech in Bengal in the last nine days, played on the themes he focused on in his three earlier speeches as he sought to preserve the headstart the BJP got from North Bengal in 2019. The party won seven of Bengal’s northernmost eight seats — Alipurduar, Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Raiganj, Balurghat, Malda North — with the opposition getting only one (the Congress won Malda South).
The PM’s connect with the North Bengal audience started with his “chaiwala’s pranam to tea-garden workers” as he stated how the BJP had “a clear roadmap for the development” of the region and how it was focused on promoting businesses related to tea, tourism and timber and the construction of infrastructure. “The Left did not listen to you, then the TMC ignored you too. They were busy looting land from the poor,” he said after unveiling a host of railway and road projects and reminding the crowd how the BJP had brought tea-garden workers within the ambit of the Kisan Credit Card and the PM Fasal Bima Yojana.
The BJP-led government was sensitive to the problems and challenges of the region, Modi told the Siliguri crowd. Siliguri is part of Darjeeling LS constituency, which the BJP has won thrice in succ-ession.