BJP chief Nitin Nabin set to tour Durgapur, Asansol on first Bengal visit
Kolkata (PTI): With the assembly polls on the horizon, BJP national president Nitin Nabin will make his first visit to West Bengal on Tuesday after assuming charge, with a two-day tour of the industrial belt of Durgapur and Asansol.
Nabin is scheduled to arrive at Andal airport in the evening and will remain in the West Burdwan district through Wednesday.
BJP sources said his itinerary is entirely centred on organisational meetings and cadre mobilisation, underlining the party’s renewed focus on strengthening its grassroots machinery ahead of the polls.
The absence of Kolkata from Nabin’s maiden Bengal tour has triggered political speculation, with party insiders insisting that the choice of Durgapur-Asansol is strategic rather than symbolic.
Initially, there were indications that he might be in Kolkata en route to Burdwan.
However, the final intinerary excludes any engagement in the state capital, with the BJP chief confining his interactions to the south-western part, commonly known as the ‘Rarh Banga’ region, which the party considers electorally critical.
Political observers feel the BJP is recalibrating its Bengal strategy after mixed electoral fortunes in recent years, particularly in the south-western belt comprising East and West Burdwan, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum, a zone that once formed the backbone of the party’s expansion in the state.
“This region remains central to our revival plans. If the party has to improve its tally in the assembly, ‘Rarh Banga’ is unavoidable,” a senior BJP leader said.
This belt has delivered some of the BJP’s strongest performances during the 2019 general elections, when the party won five of the eight parliamentary seats in the region, contributing to its best-ever showing in West Bengal with 18 Lok Sabha seats.
The momentum failed to fully translate into the 2021 assembly elections, with the BJP managing to win only 18 of the 57 seats in the ‘Rarh Banga’ region.
The slide became sharper in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when the party retained just two of the eight seats it had earlier won.
Durgapur and Asansol, in particular, are seen as crucial because of its significant non-Bengali voter base, a demographic the BJP believes remains receptive but insufficiently consolidated in recent elections.
While the party lost the Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha seat in 2024, BJP leaders maintain that the organisation remains electorally competitive in pockets such as the Durgapur West Assembly constituency, where it had emerged victorious in 2021, and led in the segment during the last parliamentary election.
“Nitin Nabin’s visit is about consolidating existing support rather than firefighting,” a BJP functionary said, adding that the leadership wants to “rebuild confidence among workers” after successive electoral setbacks.
According to the schedule, the BJP chief will land at Andal around 4 pm on Tuesday. He is slated to attend the Kamal Mela at the Chitralaya Mela Ground in Durgapur in the evening, followed by a closed-door organisational meeting at a city hotel.
On Wednesday, the BJP president will offer prayers at the Biringi Kali Temple before chairing an organisational meeting at the Chitralaya grounds.
Later in the day, he will travel to Raniganj in Asansol to address another organisational meeting, before returning to Andal to board his return flight.
Party leaders said the meetings will focus on poll preparedness, booth-level strengthening and coordination among district units, with special emphasis on regions where the BJP’s vote share has remained intact despite recent losses.
For the BJP, Nabin’s first Bengal visit as national president signals a shift towards region-specific political targeting, as the party attempts to reclaim lost ground and reassert itself in a state where its electoral graph has plateaued since 2021, according to the observers.
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EC-TMC meet ends on bitter note; CEC asks TMC delegation to 'get lost', MP accused of 'shouting'
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New Delhi (PTI): The meeting between a Trinamool Congress delegation and the full bench of the Election Commission on Wednesday culminated on an acrimonious note, with the TMC saying the panel's chief asked them to "get lost" at the end of the seven-minute meeting, while the EC accused them of "shouting".
After the meeting, TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien told mediapersons that they handed over letters from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, and also apprised him of specific instances of poll officials having links with the BJP.
"Then he said, 'Get lost'. We have done eight to nine meetings with the Election Commission. Apart from the CEC, none of the other election commissioners spoke," O'Brien said.
"While we were walking out, one of my colleagues congratulated Gyanesh Kumar for being the only CEC to have notices moved in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for his removal," O'Brien MP said.
Meanwhile, sources in the Election Commission said the poll panel chief gave a "straight talk" to TMC leaders.
They accused O'Brien of shouting at the election commissioners and alleged that he asked the CEC not to speak.
The EC sources further said the elections in West Bengal would be "fear-free, violence-free, intimidation-free, and inducement-free."
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