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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Bihar CM Nitish Kumar takes oath as Rajya Sabha member
New Delhi (PTI): Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday took oath as a member of Rajya Sabha, marking the end of his two-decade rule in the eastern state and paving the way for a new chief minister.
The oath was administered by Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan in his chamber at a brief ceremony. The Chairman later welcomed him as a member of the Upper House and also on his return in Parliament.
Kumar took the oath in Hindi in the presence of Union Minister J P Nadda, who is also leader of the house, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Panchayati Raj Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ram Nath Thakur and Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal.
Bihar deputy chief minister Samrat Chaudhary was also present at the oath-taking.
JDU leader and party's working president Sanjay Kumar Jha, Congress chief whip in Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh, besides BJP MP and former union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy and BJP chief whip in Lok Sabha Sanjay Jaiswal, were among those present during the oath-taking.
"Vice President of India and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri C. P. Radhakrishnan, administered the oath to Shri Nitish Kumar as an elected Member of Rajya Sabha, from Bihar, at Parliament House today," the Vice President's office said on X, while sharing pictures of the oath-taking.
After the oath-taking, Kumar came out of the new Parliament building and spoke about the time he was a member of the Lok Sabha and sat in the old Parliament building.
As Kumar assumes the Rajya Sabha role, it marks the end of his long two-decade rule in Bihar. Kumar will soon resign as chief minister and the NDA is likely to elect a new chief minister of Bihar on April 14.
He has already resigned as a member of the State Legislative Council on March 30 after he was elected to Rajya Sabha.
The JD(U) supremo was elected to the Upper House of Parliament on March 16, and he had to quit as an MLC in the 14-day period after his election.
