Modi to attend campaign in Kharagpur Sadar today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come to Kharagpur Sadar on Sunday to campaign for Dilip Ghosh, president of party’s state unit.

Party leaders believe that Modi’s visit to Kharagpur will inspire party workers and will give them a moral boost as they believe that Ghosh will do well in the Assembly election. Kailash Vijayvargiya and Siddharth Nath Singh, two national secretaries in charge of West Bengal will accompany the Prime Minister.

Dilip Ghosh will be contesting against veteran Congress leader Gyan Singh Sohanpal and Ramaprasad Tewari of Trinamool Congress. Sohanpal was the transport minister in Siddhartha Shankar Roy’s Cabinet between 1972-77. In 2011 election he won by a margin of 32, 369 votes. He got 75, 425 votes where his nearest rival, Anil Kumar Das of CPI(M) got 43,056 votes. BJP candidate Prem Chand Jha got 9, 303 votes. However, the scenario totally changed in favour of BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Trinamool Congress candidate Sandhya Roy had won from Midnapore Parliamentary seat by 1.85 lakh votes. But in Kharagpur Sadar constituency she trailed behind the BJP candidate by over 11,000 votes. Roy got 40,135 votes while Prabhakar Tewari of BJP got 51,152 votes. BJP wants to cash in on this lead in the Assembly polls. But the Modi wave which was there in 2014 Lok Sabha polls has faded and lost its bite. On several issues BJP has received countrywide criticism. The loss in Bihar election is a major blow and with this backdrop, the Modi effect is not likely to be effective. Dilip Ghosh, a newcomer to BJP is contesting for the first time. He was a hardcore RSS man and joined BJP nearly a year ago. But RSS is quite strong in areas surrounding Kharagpur Sadar and they are carrying out a whispering campaign. TMC did not field any candidate in 2011 as it had alliance with Congress. On the whole, fight in this constituency is likely to be very close. With this backdrop, Prime Minister’s meeting is likely to be very important for BJP. It is learnt that Modi will address a meeting in favour of Chandra Bose.