The BJP’s target to hold 1,000 meetings across Bengal in four months from June 1 to celebrate nine years of Narendra Modi’s rule is proving to be easier said than done.

State BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar has admitted that the exercise has kicked off at a slower pace than planned.

The BJP had lined up one meeting each in 1,000 mandals of the party in the state. A mandal is a small unit in the BJP’s organisational structure.

To speed up the process, more leaders are being involved so that the workload can be distributed amongst them.

As part of the celebrations, it was decided that in the first phase, one meeting each will be organised in 294 Assembly segments in the state by the end of June.

However, till now, the BJP has managed to hold only four meetings, raising doubts about whether the party will be able to reach even half the target for the month.

Key state BJP leaders, including Majumdar, leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and national vice-president Dilip Ghosh, had been assigned targets to fulfil.

Majumdar has confirmed to the party that he will address around 70 meetings this month. Adhikari said he would speak at about 30 meetings till June 15. Ghosh has been assigned the target of addressing 10 meetings in the next seven days.

“I’ve been assigned a target by the party, which I hope I’ll be able to meet. But I believe everyone in the party will have to take up this responsibility because it might not be possible for me to address all these meetings,” Majumdar said and added that from June 11, the number of meetings would increase.

So far, not even one meeting has been held each day and Majumdar has blamed the heat wave for the below-target performance.

“That is why more leaders will have to be involved in the process,” he added.

Sources said the list of leaders who were tasked with addressing meetings was being revised to include more names.

A BJP functionary told this correspondent that holding meetings was becoming a challenge for a lack of base at the grassroots level.

“Heatwave is at best a fig leaf for leaders to hide their incompetence and organisational weakness. When the CPM can defy the heat to hold mega rallies across the state, what stops us from going ahead with our programmes? It only shows that our organisation lacks strength,” he said.