It’s the season of rath yatras in the BJP. After the just concluded Rashtriya Ekta Yatra, the party is all set for another rath yatra, but this time to enhance its support base in poll-bound West Bengal. Through this yatra, the BJP, which virtually has no stakes in the state, wants to project itself as alternative for providing “peace and development” in the state. The party said it will contest on all the Assembly seats. Assembly polls in the state are scheduled for this year.
The BJP’s Navjagran Yatra will commence on January 30 from Cooch Behar and will end in Kolkata on February 15. The party is of the view that the yatra would “galvanise party machinery” and give it a chance to reach to more and more people. The party will also highlight the Left government’s “failure” in ensuring peace and development and will also target the Congress and TMC on corruption and price rise issue.
“West Bengal is a poor state and TMC is as much responsible for it as the Congress. The Left rule in the last 34 years has also affected the state. Similarly, corruption is a big issue. The state government has given reservation to Muslims in jobs. We are opposed to reservations on religious grounds and will expose this pure votebank politics,” said party’s West Bengal in-charge Chandan Mitra. The party will also highlight the issue of “politics over dead bodies”.
“Supporters of TMC and Left are being killed by each other and politics is played over dead bodies by both,” said the BJP leader.
Though Mr Mitra conceded that the BJP has not paid enough attention to growth of its party cadre in West Bengal, but he sought to blame it on too much dependence on former coalition partners like the Trinamul Congress.
The party is also exploring possibilities of alliances with local parties, especially in the northern part of the state.
While former party chief Rajnath Singh will flag off the rath yatra at Cooch Behar on January 30, senior leader L.K. Advani will address a rally at Kolkata when the yatra culminates on February 15.
Incidentally, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari’s participation in the rath yatra is not confirmed so far and the party is not clear whether he would attend.
“Gadkari is likely to attend the Kolkata rally on February 15. Since there is a national office-bearers meeting on February 16, he is likely to be there,” Mr Mitra said.
Senior party leaders, including Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M.M. Joshi, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Shahnawaz Hussain, will also address the yatra when it passes through different cities.