The Bengal BJP will hire seven trains to transport its supporters from across the state to Calcutta to participate in the march to Nabanna on September 13, sources in the party said.

The party has set a target of two lakh footfall for the event, even as several party insiders questioned if this would help the saffron camp reinvent itself in the state.

"Three trains will arrive from north Bengal and four from south Bengal. This will help our supporters from far-flung corners of the state to join us,” said a BJP MP on the condition of anonymity.

The leader added that the north Bengal leadership has set a target to gather at least one person from every booth across the 54 Assembly constituencies of the north. In the southern part of the stat, each organisational district of the party has been tasked with bringing 15,000-25,000 people, depending on their organisational abilities.

This is not the first time that the BJP is booking entire trains to bring crowds to its events. It has done similar exercises earlier as well. But the crowd target this time is bigger, sources said. However, amid all the preparations, multiple sections in the BJP expressed their doubts over the outcome of the event. They reminded that similar marches to Nabanna had been organised earlier as well. In October 2020, BJP MP Tejaswi Surya, who is also the national chief of the party’s youth wing, led a rally to Nabanna.

He had also claimed that the police had beaten up BJP supporters recklessly. However, the rally did not seem to have any bearing on the results of the Assembly polls seven months later.

“Will any of this have any positive effect on the ground? We are bringing people from across the state and on September 13 the streets of Calcutta will be flooded by BJP supporters. But what next? We still don’t have a strong organisation at the booth level,” a BJP office-bearer said.

Sources said that the BJP’s minder for Bengal Sunil Bansal has asked the party’s old-timers, who were unhappy with their colleagues currently at the helm of affairs in the BJP state unit, to set aside their differences and start working together to strengthen the organisation. Bansal has promised the old guard that they will be given their due respect, a BJP insider said.