Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee will address public meetings in the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency on Thursday at venues which are around 40km apart as the high-decibel campaign for the general election reaches its crescendo in north Bengal.
Prime Minister Modi will speak on the Raasmela Ground in Cooch Behar town at 2.30pm to canvass for BJP candidate Nisith Pramanik.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s rally is scheduled for 12pm at Mathabhanga. The Trinamul Congress has fielded Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia in the Cooch Behar seat which is reserved for Scheduled Castes.
The Trinamul chairperson will address a rally at Malbazar in the Jalpaiguri parliamentary segment later at 1.30pm on Thursday.
Mamata has been in north Bengal since Sunday night, taking stock of the damage caused by a storm in Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to speak at another meeting in Jalpaiguri on April 7.
After 2019, this is the first time that the two leaders will address public meetings in north Bengal on the same day.
Modi was in Siliguri while Mamata was in Cooch Behar on April 3, 2019, for the general election campaign.
“I will address two public meetings tomorrow. The following day, I will address more rallies in the region. On April 17, I will go to Assam as our party has fielded four candidates there,” Mamata, who is staying at a private resort in Chalsa, Jalpaiguri, said on Wednesday.
Told about Modi’s visit, the chief minister was brief in her reaction. “Any political party can campaign anywhere. It is election time and anybody can come for the campaign,” she said.
Elections will be held in the Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and the Alipurduar constituencies on April 19. The BJP had won the three seats in 2019.
“We are planning to bring over one lakh people to the Prime Minister’s rally tomorrow. The BJP will win the Cooch Behar seat again,” said Biraj Bose, a general secretary of the party’s Cooch Behar district committee.
However, several leaders of a faction of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association (GCPA) which is led by Nagen Roy, a Rajya Sabha member of the BJP, have said the party has not invited them and so, they will not attend Modi’s rally.
Clad in the traditional Rajbanshi attire and holding aloft GCPA flags, hundreds of supporters would swarm the venues of the BJP’s previous rallies in Cooch Behar.
“The MP will be there. As we have not been invited, none of our supporters will go to the Raasmela Ground,” Nirmal Roy, the president of the GCPA faction, said.
Trinamul, which is desperate to win the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri seats, has made arrangements for the assembly of thousands of people at Mamata’s public meetings in Mathabhanga and Malbazar on Thursday.
Trinamul has lined up at least 12 meetings which will be addressed by the chief minister in north Bengal.
Additional reporting by our Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar correspondents
