Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel across the length of Bengal on Wednesday to address two rallies, one in the north in Siliguri and the other in the south in Kolkata at 1 pm in the afternoon ahead of 2019 general elections.
BJP National President Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Cabinet Minister-Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, and several others will address election rallies in West Bengal.
Mamata Banerjee will address the rally at Dinhata on Wednesday at 3 pm in the afternoon immediately after PM Modi’s address in Siliguri gets over.
Trinamool Congress(TMC), being the ruling party in Bengal, the chief minister Mamata Banerjee is all set to take on the prime minister on her own turf. To counter Modi, she has tweaked her schedule and brought forward her rally at Dinhata by a day. Though her election campaign was to begin on April 4.
“The Chief Minister will address the rally at Dinhata on Wednesday at 3.00 pm,” TMC Coochbehar district secretary Rabindranath Ghosh said.
Narendra Modi is likely to focus on four points in his speeches in the rally while addressing Siliguri. These are corruption, law and order, lack of industry and citizenship screening exercise.
BJP president Amit Shah has repeatedly emphasized that he will not be satisfied with anything fewer than 23 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. However, over the past two Lok Sabha and two assembly elections in Bengal, the vote share of BJP has remained at a level that is way behind that of the ruling TMC.
The Trinamool Congress government has been in power for the past eight years since May 20, 2011.
In 2009 Lok Sabha elections the BJP won 6.14% of the votes and secured only one seat. Five years later in 2014, the figures climbed to 17.02% and two seats. In comparison, TMC secured 31.18% of the votes and 19 seats in 2009 which rose to 39.79% votes and 34 seats in 2014.
TMC has been ahead of BJP in all these years in Bengal.
West Bengal has a total of 42 Lok Sabha seats, the third largest number after Uttar Pradesh 80 and Maharashtra 48.