<p>Kolkata: With the assembly elections just a few months away in West Bengal, the BJP has set its eyes on the Durga Puja to counter the Trinamool Congress’s campaign, which sought to brand the saffron party as anti-Bengali and an ‘outsider’.</p><p>With the festive spirit, which was dampened due to waterlogging caused by overnight downpour on Monday and Tuesday, slowly returning to the City of Joy, Home Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate a few Durga Puja pandals on Friday, including the one themed on ‘Operation Sindoor’.</p><p>BJP president, J P Nadda, may also visit the city.</p><p>The TMC has been trying to build a campaign around Bangaliyana or the pride of being Bengali to counter the BJP’s Hindutva blitz.</p><p>TMC has been accusing the BJP governments in states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Delhi, of harassing the Bengali-speaking migrant workers, branding them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and, in some cases, deporting them to the neighbouring country.</p><p>Its campaign, branding the BJP as an ‘outsider’ in West Bengal, had helped it win 215 of the 294 seats in 2021 and retain power. The BJP’s tally, however, had gone up from just three seats in 2016 to 77 in 2021.</p><p>Shah’s visit to Kolkata is part of the BJP’s bid to blunt the TMC’s campaign and win the hearts of the Bengalis.</p><p>The most prominent of the Durga Puja he will inaugurate is at Santosh Mitra Square. The pandal has been themed on the ‘Operation Sindoor’.</p><p>Shah may inaugurate a couple of other Durga Puja pandals in the city, too. Though most of the committees organising Durga Puja are controlled by the TMC, the BJP too has reached out to some over the years.</p><p>The BJP has also taken a leaf out of Left's playbook on outreach to people during the festival and asked its units across the state to set up stalls near pandals to sell books written by the party’s ideologues and distribute campaign pamphlets.</p>
<p>Kolkata: With the assembly elections just a few months away in West Bengal, the BJP has set its eyes on the Durga Puja to counter the Trinamool Congress’s campaign, which sought to brand the saffron party as anti-Bengali and an ‘outsider’.</p><p>With the festive spirit, which was dampened due to waterlogging caused by overnight downpour on Monday and Tuesday, slowly returning to the City of Joy, Home Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate a few Durga Puja pandals on Friday, including the one themed on ‘Operation Sindoor’.</p><p>BJP president, J P Nadda, may also visit the city.</p><p>The TMC has been trying to build a campaign around Bangaliyana or the pride of being Bengali to counter the BJP’s Hindutva blitz.</p><p>TMC has been accusing the BJP governments in states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Delhi, of harassing the Bengali-speaking migrant workers, branding them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and, in some cases, deporting them to the neighbouring country.</p><p>Its campaign, branding the BJP as an ‘outsider’ in West Bengal, had helped it win 215 of the 294 seats in 2021 and retain power. The BJP’s tally, however, had gone up from just three seats in 2016 to 77 in 2021.</p><p>Shah’s visit to Kolkata is part of the BJP’s bid to blunt the TMC’s campaign and win the hearts of the Bengalis.</p><p>The most prominent of the Durga Puja he will inaugurate is at Santosh Mitra Square. The pandal has been themed on the ‘Operation Sindoor’.</p><p>Shah may inaugurate a couple of other Durga Puja pandals in the city, too. Though most of the committees organising Durga Puja are controlled by the TMC, the BJP too has reached out to some over the years.</p><p>The BJP has also taken a leaf out of Left's playbook on outreach to people during the festival and asked its units across the state to set up stalls near pandals to sell books written by the party’s ideologues and distribute campaign pamphlets.</p>
