Tripura CM is BJP's star campaigner in Bengal

Agartala: Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, who is BJP's only Bengali Chief Minister in the country, will be the star campaigner for the party in West Bengal starting Friday along with the central leadership, a party official said here on Thursday.

BJP's Tripura spokesman Nabendu Bhattacharjee said as Deb is the only Bengali Chief Minister of the BJP in the country and as under his leadership the 25 years of the Left regime was crushed in Tripura, he would be the "star campaigner" of the party in the upcoming General Elections.

The sources said that the central and West Bengal leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wanted Deb to address at least 20 rallies in Bengal in December and January.

Tripura Chief Minister's OSD (Officer on Special Duty) Sanjay Mishra said that Deb would attend both official and party programmes during his stay in West Bengal.

Ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is all set to embark on its high profile "rath yatra" (chariot campaign) from Friday in Cooch Behar.

BJP national President Amit Shah will launch the campaign named "Save Democracy Rally" on December 7, then from Kakdwip in the south 24 Parganas district on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum district on December 14.

Party sources here said that besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah, many top leaders of the saffron party including Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, and Chief Ministers Raman Singh, Yogi Adityanath, besides Uma Bharati and Giriraj Singh would also participate in the week-long high voltage campaign.

Mishra said the Tripura Chief Minister would address all the three rallies on December 7, 9 and 14.

"Due to the Chief Minister's hectic official pre-scheduled programmes, he might not attend 20 rallies in Bengal as desired by the central leaderships but efforts are on to make him address at least 10 public gatherings," the OSD said.

"Deb already campaigned for the party in Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat and Mizoram. During Lok Sabha elections, he would campaign for BJP in all the eight Northeastern states and a few other big states, besides Bengal," Bhattacharjee said.

Deb, 47, is also the President of the BJP's Tripura Pradesh Committee.