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.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
With Bangladesh out of T20 WC, ICC reworking application process for its travelling media
New Delhi (PTI): The International Cricket Council is reworking the media accreditation process for Bangladesh journalists wishing to cover the T20 World Cup in India after the withdrawal of its national team citing security concerns in the neighbouring nation.
The ICC is changing the application process even as some of the Bangladesh journalists claimed that their accreditation request was rejected by the world body.
"There is a reworking of the process since there is a change in the number of requests and the schedules. The accreditation lists are being worked out accordingly.
"Some of the Bangladesh journalists, who showed interest in covering the tournament despite their team's withdrawal, have started getting approvals," ICC sources told PTI.
Roughly 80-90 Bangladeshi journalists applied for the media accreditation and, sources said, even if their team was participating in the ICC event, not all requests could be accommodated.
"If you go by the country quota, you can't exceed the number beyond 40. The ICC goes by the recommendations of the home board and accordingly takes a call on the applications," sources added.
In Dhaka, BCB media chairman Amjad Hossain said he has taken up the matter with the ICC.
"The decision came only yesterday and we have sought to know (the details). An explanation has been requested. This is an internal and confidential matter, but to summarise -- we wanted to know why this was done," Hossain told reporters in Dhaka.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Bangladeshi journalist said it was the first time his media accreditation was not approved.
"I have covered 8 to 9 ICC World Cups. This was the first time my application was rejected. We are awaiting clarity from BCB before reapplying," he said.
As per the ICC assessment, the Bangladesh cricket team did not face a security threat in India but the country's cricket board still decided to not travel to the country.
Subsequently, the ICC replaced Bangladesh with Scotland for the tournament beginning on February 7.
