Lok Sabha 2024: Amit Shah To Sound Bengal Poll Bugle Later This Week

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will launch the BJP’s poll campaign for next year’s Lok Sabha elections from Suri in Bengal’s Birbhum district on Friday (14 April). 

The choice of Birbhum to launch the campaign is significant. The Trinamool Congress strongman from that district, Anubrata Mondal, is currently in jail in Delhi.

Mondal’s absence from the district has rendered the party organisationally weak and the BJP is hoping to reap that advantage to snatch the Birbhum Lok Sabha seat from the Trinamool next year.

Mondal is one of the prime accused in the mega cattle smuggling scam and is alleged to have amassed a lot of wealth. He has been a close confidante of Mamata Banerjee and his arrest and subsequent incarceration in Delhi has been a big blow to the party and also to Banerjee. 

Realising the demoralising effect that Mondal’s arrest and his continuing imprisonment has had on party cadres, the Trinamool chief herself assumed charge of party affairs in Birbhum.

But that has not helped much. Mondal was in charge of the Trinamool’s poll machinery not only in Birbhum, but also the neighbouring districts of East and West Bardhaman, Purulia and Bankura.

He is widely accused of presiding over the Trinamool’s formidable army of muscle men and rigging all elections in the districts under his control since 2011.

The BJP has a strong presence in Birbhum and is hoping that Mondal’s absence will provide a level playing field and pave the way for the party’s victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP is also expecting to perform well in the panchayat polls scheduled for May this year from Birbhum. 

Incidentally, Amit Shah had also launched the party’s campaign in Bengal for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Bolpur in Birbhum. The BJP candidate, Dudh Kumar Mondal, polled 39 per cent votes while Trinamool’s Shatabdi Roy polled a little over 45 per cent of the votes cast. 

“Strong anti-incumbency against the Trinamool fuelled by widespread anger against endemic corruption in Bengal perpetrated by the ruling party, and Anubrata Mondal’s absence, will ensure our victory in the forthcoming panchayat polls as well as the Lok Sabha polls next year,” said BJP Birbhum president Dhurba Saha.