Union home minister Amit Shah will address a public meeting at Suri in Birbhum district on April 14, said the BJP’s Bengal leaders on Sunday.

The rally has been planned, according to sources, with an aim to give the party’s organisation a boost ahead of panchayat and Lok Sabha polls.

The absence of the Trinamul Congress’s Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mandal, on account of incarceration in Delhi, has thrown open an opportunity for the saffron camp to gain ground in the district, the sources said. A rally addressed by Shah, the BJP hopes, is likely to help the party in this bid.

“Amitji will address a public rally at the grounds of Suri Benimadhab Institution on April 14,” said a BJP leader. “We are hoping to wrest the parliamentary constituencies in Birbhum, and who can encourage our workers better than him?”

Shah’s visit is going to be a part of the BJP’s programme to focus on the 24 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bengal that it did not win in 2019. Shah and the party’s national chief J.P. Nadda will visit 12 each of these constituencies in order to give the party’s organisation a boost in those areas.

Since Shah is generally deemed to have a bigger appeal among BJP workers than Nadda, and Birbhum has gained importance in the BJP’s scheme of things, it was decided that it would be Shah who will address the rally in Suri.

The BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, has addressed 13 public meetings in the Birbhum organisational district. He addressed a rally at Muraroi on Sunday. A plaque commemorating the deceased people of the Bogtui carnage was inaugurated by him on March 21. Other leaders of the party have also addressed several rallies and participated in other programs in the district.

Birbhum accounts for two of the 42 parliamentary constituencies — Bolpur and Birbhum — of Bengal. In 2019, the BJP lost the Bolpur seat by 88,924 votes and the Birbhum seat by 1,06,403 votes to Trinamul. Two years later in 2021, it managed to win only one of the 11 Assembly seats that fall in the district. The Suri Assembly seat falls under the Birbhum constituency.

However, a section of the party said that Shah’s visit to Birbhum was only natural because the state unit knows that it is beyond its capacity to win a difficult seat like Birbhum without central intervention.

“Let’s face facts. We don’t have it in us to win seats in Birbhum on our own, from the state level,” said a source.