Amit Shah's first visit to Bengal since Assembly poll defeat starts today - check Home Minister's itinerary

Pic courtesy: ANI (file photo)

New Delhi: For the first time after last year's Assembly polls, Home Minister Amit Shah is all set to visit West Bengal. His two-day visit to the eastern state will kick off from today (May 5) and will begin with a stop by at the South Bengal Frontier of the Border Security Force (BSF).

Amit Shah's visit: What's on cards

According to officials, he will inaugurate six modern floating Border Out-Posts and a boat ambulance stationed in the Sunderban waters. After inaugurating the floating BOPs, Union Cooperation Minister Shah will also lay the foundation stone of the Maitri Sangrahalaya (Museum) located at BOP Haridaspur. The number of floating BOPs has been increased to enhance the surveillance in the inaccessible areas of Sunderbans of West Bengal.

Apart from this, Boat Ambulance is also being commenced to provide medical assistance in this inaccessible area of Sundarbans from Saheb Khali (West Bengal) to Shamsher Nagar (Bihar). The Home Minister's day-long engagement will culminate on Thursday with a public meeting he will attend at 6:15 pm at Railway institute sports ground in West Bengal's Siliguri.

On Friday, the Home Minister will visit Teen Bigha and interact with Border Security Force (BSF) personnel at BoP Jhikabari at around 9.30 am in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district. The Home Minister will later hold a meeting with the MPs, MLAs and state office-bearers of the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party at 2 pm on Friday at Hotel Westin in Kolkata. The Home Minister's two-day visit to the state will culminate at a cultural event organised by the Ministry of Culture to celebrate the Inscription of Durga Puja on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, at around 6 pm at Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. 

A crucial visit

Amit Shah's visit to West Bengal comes at a time when the BJP looks to tone up its organisational machinery in the state, which has been plagued by internal squabbles and defections since the 2021 assembly poll results. The state BJP unit has carefully crafted his political engagements, with multiple programmes slotted for North Bengal, where it made deep inroads both in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2021 assembly polls, party sources said.

This will be Shah's first visit to the state post-2021 assembly polls, where despite its high-pitch poll campaign, the BJP managed to bag only 77 of 294 seats. The TMC, led by feisty Mamata Banerjee, stormed to power for the third consecutive time, riding on the "Bengali Pride" poll plank, and bagging 213 seats.

Since the declaration of poll results in 2021, the state unit had been fighting hard to keep its flock together as former union minister Babul Supriyo, five legislators, including its national vice president Mukul Roy, and several leaders switched over to the TMC in a span of one year.

(With Agency inputs)