Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio address Mann Ki Baat on Sunday will focus on Bengal while the BJP will air it across all its 78,800 booths across the state.
“The PM will speak to people of Bengal on issues related to the state in his radio address,” party MP and state general-secretary Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato told this paper on Saturday. It could be the first of many such addresses by Modi to focus on Bengal’s socio-political issues, he added.
Multiple sources said while BJP national president J.P. Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah have made several visits to Bengal to kick-start the party’s election campaign, Modi will get involved in the process virtually first.
On Friday, during his virtual speech to defend the three farm laws, Modi targeted the ruling dispensation in Bengal for its alleged failure to upgrade farmers’ lives. Similarly, to counter Trinamul’s narrative that the BJP is a party of outsiders, Modi tried to appropriate Rabindranath Tagore in his virtual speech to start Viswa-Bharati centenary celebrations on December 24.
“Modiji is our most credible face. We will go to polls with him as mascot. It is natural that he will focus on Bengal in his radio address,” a source said. “He will come to Bengal every month from January,” the source added. “But, his first visit will be after January 12.” Shah is supposed to visit Bengal on January 12 to join an event of the BJP’s youth wing marking Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary.
BJP meet for new faces
BJP joint national general-secretary Shivprakash tried to quell feuds between the old guard and newcomers at a closed-door meeting on Saturday in Calcutta. Quoting Shivprakash, a source said: “No one is old or new in the BJP. Everyone is a party worker and will have to work for the party.”
The meeting formally introduced 110 new entrants, including former Trinamul minister Suvendu Adhikari, to the BJP.
Former Trinamul MP Sunil Mondal, who joined the BJP with Adhikari, was attacked by alleged Trinamul workers in front of the BJP’s Hastings office in Calcutta. BJP minder for Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya spoke to Shah about it and the Centre would provide security to Mondal, sources said.
