TMC dubs Shah & Nadda’s Bengal visit ‘political tourism’

Kolkata: At a time when senior BJP leader and Union Home minister Amit Shah and the party’s national president J P Nadda are visiting the city to finalise strategy for Lok Sabha polls, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has said that it is nothing short of “political tourism” while remarking that more these BJP leaders visit Bengal less will be their chances of victory.

Shah along with Nadda, on Tuesday, held a meeting in a city hotel with the party’s core committee members. The meeting was aimed at deciding strategies for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Sources said many prominent faces, including Union ministers of State (MoS), such as Subhas Sarkar, John Barla and Shantanu Thakur, did not find a place in the meeting and neither was the party member and actor Mithun Chakraborty, present. A vote management team was formed to oversee the party’s election-related activities.

It was learnt that previously two teams from Delhi had visited Bengal to compile a performance report of the party in the state. However, the reports submitted were reportedly not satisfactory to the top rung leaders.

Lately, the state BJP has also been witnessing intra-party differences. Recent comments by the BJP leader Anupam Hazra have further widened the gulf within the party fold. He has been demanding a BJP that is free of “thieves”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was supposed to attend the Gita chant event organised by his party in the city, did not appear.

Reacting to the developments, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that it is nothing new that BJP’s top rung leaders from Delhi visit Bengal just before elections. “People love to visit Bengal, especially Kolkata where there are many tourist hotspots. Similarly, the BJP leaders too love to visit the city and the state before elections. It is nothing short of political tourism,” he said.

He further remarked that even ahead of the 2021 Bengal elections the Delhi BJP leaders frequently visited Bengal and made tall claims but the end result was zero. “The more they visit Bengal, the lesser are their chances of winning any seats,” Ghosh remarked.