New BJP prez Nabin lands in Durgapur on 2-day visit, focus on ‘Rarh Bangla’
Times of India | 28 January 2026
Kolkata: Exactly a week after taking charge as BJP's national president, Nitin Nabin on Tuesday reached Bengal on his first official two-day visit to the state.
With his focus on Durgapur-Asansol and the Rarh Bengal region — where BJP had a strong foothold but started to lose ground — Nabin landed in Durgapur and held an organisational meeting.
"The party sees organisational opportunity and growing support in districts like Burdwan, Asansol, Birbhum, Bankura and Purulia," a Bengal BJP senior explained.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's SS Ahluwaliah wrested the Burdwan-Durgapur seat from Trinamool by a margin of around 3,000 votes. In the 2021 assembly polls, however, BJP managed to win only one of the seven constituencies, Durgapur West.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's heavyweight candidate Dilip Ghosh lost from the seat by 1.4 lakh votes. Similarly, in adjoining Asansol, TMC managed to wrest the seat from BJP in the 2022 bypoll and retained it in 2024.
BJP lost Bankura in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and its vote share came down by 7%. Despite having 4 MLAs under Bankura Lok Sabha, BJP was able to get a lead only from one assembly segment. While the party was able to retain the adjoining Bishnupur seat, its vote share came down in 2024. In Purulia, BJP's vote share came down by 9% in 2024.
Nabin also dealt with the campaign strategy in detail and re-evaluated the candidate selection approach. Pointing to new campaigns being designed for Bengal, BJP functionaries said Nabin wanted the party to focus more on consolidating women and youth.
Later in the evening, at a "Kamal Mela" at Chitralaya ground in Durgapur, Nabin said: "We are committed to the cause of women and youth in Bengal. We worship the mother goddess in West Bengal, and the state has woven the entire country with Durga Puja."
"Issues like infiltration, corruption, unemployment and rural distress are already influencing the political environment," he added.
"We can achieve Viksit Bharat only after Bengal is advanced. For that, we need to take Bengal's culture forward," Nabin said. On Wednesday, he will hold meetings again to strengthen BJP's strategy for the assembly elections and improve booth-level coordination.