Shah to visit Bengal by end of March, discuss ‘fake voter’ issue
Times of India | 6 March 2025
Kolkata: Union home minister Amit Shah, who met state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and state minder Amit Malviya on Wednesday, is likely to visit Bengal by the end of this month. Shah is likely to discuss the issue of "fake voters" in the state. "It was a regular meeting with Amitji," Majumdar said.
Meanwhile, BJP has started to strengthen its presence in Bhowanipore assembly constituency area. On Tuesday, nearly 200 BJP workers held a meeting in the area. CM Mamata Banerjee won the Bhowanipore bypolls with a margin of around 59,000 votes. Leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari might meet workers in the area at a meeting scheduled next week.
According to sources, BJP workers will hold ‘chai pe charcha' meetings across different neighbourhoods in Bhowanipore on a regular basis and interact more with the locals. "Common voters are afraid of violence during the polls. Trinamool workers intimidate them and many voters don't dare to step out of their homes on voting day," said a Bengal BJP neta. "During the Lok Sabha polls, we could minimise the losses and the party was ahead of Trinamool in five of the eight wards here. We were trailing by around 150 votes in ward 73 where Kajari Banerjee, the CM's sister-in-law, is a councillor. Besides, we were behind TMC only in wards 77 and 82," said the neta.
According to BJP seniors, the party's challenge in the area is the minority-dominated ward 77 where Trinamool usually secures a huge margin. In Tuesday's meeting, netas asked workers to start attending more social and cultural programmes in these areas and attend iftar parties.
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