BJP plans to enrol 1 crore members in West Bengal

TNN

New Delhi, Nov 17, 2104: Gearing up to get into West Bengal in a big way, BJP has decided to double its target for the membership drive that started on November 1, from enrolling 50 lakh people to 1 crore by March 31, 2015, when the aggressive countrywide drive ends. 

 

This was decided at a recent meeting where the action plan for ’Mission Bengal’ was discussed. The meeting was presided over by BJP chief Amit Shah and attended by Bengal unit chief Rahul Sinha and state in charge Siddharth Nath Singh. 

 

The party will kick off its campaign for assembly polls in 2016 on November 30, when Shah is slated to address a rally at Esplanade in the heart of Kolkata. If denied permission, BJP plans to move court and turn it into a big issue. 

 

Sinha has not only been entrusted with the responsibility of enrolling 1 crore members in Bengal but also of installing booth level monitoring committees across the state, where BJP so far has little spread and has just begun making inroads. With Bengal being known for its history of political violence, setting up booth level monitoring units is not an easy job. With transfer of cadres from CPM and ruling Trinamool Congress taking place in some pockets, BJP is likely to start with these areas, with the 2016 assembly polls as the deadline for the job. 

 

Interestingly, BJP will be working on consolidating Hindu votes, but will refrain from using polarizing rhetoric, lest Muslims consolidate against it. In fact, Muslims are also joining the party in some pockets. That BJP has been sending Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to Bengal is also part of the script that carries the message that BJP is not against Muslims, it is learnt. 

 

The objective is to woo the downtrodden - dalits, SCs, OBCs -- away from TMC. The main theme of the campaign against the Mamata Banerjee government will be linking the TMC chief to the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh which has been spreading its terror network in Bengal and BJP hopes to use this line to consolidate Hindu votes in the state. 

 

The terror and Jamaat link will be connected to the Saradha chit fund scam, saying poor people’s money from the scam was being diverted into funds for terror. Standing by the scam-hit people will be one of the main tasks for BJP. 

 

Finally, another tough task that Sinha has to deliver on is to woo "respectable and acceptable" faces from among the political class and civil society that BJP lacks in the state. BJP leaders have started by zooming in on celebrities, just as Mamata Banerjee did, from the spheres of sports and entertainment along with established political leaders from other parties.