Union home minister Amit Shah will meet BJP leaders and booth-level functionaries from all the 144 Kolkata Municipal Corporation wards on Wednesday as part of efforts to open the party’s account from the city in next year’s Assembly elections.
“Amit Shahji’s meeting with nearly 3,000 functionaries, including organisational leaders from all the 144 KMC wards, will help us win several seats in the city,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya told The Telegraph.
“The people of Calcutta are frustrated with the Trinamool Congress and are ready to oust them.”
The meeting is scheduled at the Science City auditorium.
Shah will be in Calcutta for the last three days of the year. After arriving in the city on Monday, he will meet Bengal BJP functionaries at the state unit’s office in Salt Lake.
On Tuesday, Shah will hold a news conference, a meeting with the party’s state core committee, and a coordination meeting with senior RSS leaders.
On the year’s last day, he will meet the ward-level leaders after paying his respects to Girish Chandra Ghosh, a pioneer of modern Bengali theatre, and visiting Sister Nivedita’s residence in Baghbazar.
“He (Shah) is starting his organisational meetings from Calcutta. We have decided to request him to hold such meetings in other zones of the state, too,” Samik said.
The BJP currently has only three councillors from the 144 city wards. However, the party led from 45 wards in last year’s general election, and was ahead in two Assembly constituencies – Jorasanko and Shyampukur – out of the 11 in Calcutta.
At the Science City meeting, Shah will be briefed about the political situation by the ward-level functionaries, including the three councillors and the organisational unit heads. He will instruct them about the poll strategies for Calcutta.
“Establishing a footprint in Calcutta is very important for national leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah. So, besides defeating Trinamool in 2026, winning a few seats from Calcutta is important for the party,” a senior BJP leader said.
In last year’s Lok Sabha polls, the BJP led by 7,401 and 1,599 votes from Jorasanko and Shyampukur. It trailed by 1,691, 3,575, 7,268, and 8,297 votes from the Rashbehari, Maniktala, Kashipur-Belgachhia, and Bhabanipur Assembly constituencies.
The BJP is confident about winning Rashbehari and Maniktala next year, while it has set Bhabanipur as a special target, for it is represented by chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
After losing narrowly from Nandigram during the April-May Assembly elections in 2021, Mamata had in the September by-elections that year won Bhabanipur by a record margin of 58,832, securing nearly 72 per cent of the votes.
“One can easily understand the situation in Bhabanipur by looking at the 2024 results, when Trinamool’s lead was only 8,297 votes. We are therefore keen on winning the seat,” a BJP insider said.
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Mamata from Nandigram in 2021, might contest from Bhabanipur if the party so decides.
Suvendu has held multiple meetings with party leaders from Bhabanipur, where the BJP secured leads from five of the eight wards during the general election.
A source said Modi has been paying special attention to Calcutta and has played a key role in completing Metro railway projects in the city.
“Modi himself inaugurated three Metro lines in the past two years,” political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty underlined.
“Connecting Howrah with Sealdah via the Green Line and connecting the airport with the Blue Line have certainly helped the BJP gain support in Calcutta. The party therefore expects a better performance in the city in next year’s Assembly polls.”
Many incidents – from the RG Kar brutality and law college gang rape to the teacher job scandal – have helped build a strong anti-Trinamool narrative in Calcutta, Chakraborty said.
“The BJP is seriously targeting Calcutta for next year’s polls. The party’s urban-centric focus was evident after it recently won the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation in Kerala for the first time ever,” he added.
Trinamool leaders dismissed the BJP’s chances of winning seats from Calcutta.
“The BJP had seven councillors in the 2015 KMC elections, which came down to just 3 in 2021,” Trinamool spokesperson and councillor Arup Chakraborty said.
“During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had leads from more than 50 wards but failed to win a single seat from the city in the 2021 Assembly elections. How can they dream of winning seats in Calcutta next year after securing leads from only 45 wards in 2024?”