Even as West Bengal's panchayat elections are almost three months away, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned in mounting a spirited challenge against the ruling Trinamool Congress.
At a meeting of state party officials in Kolkata on Saturday, BJP insiders said senior Central ministers, including possibly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, would come to the state for campaigning.
“We are hoping to get time from the prime minister. In fact, all senior leaders would come to Bengal,” said Biswapriya Roychowdhury, state BJP vice president.
In the meeting, it was decided that BJP workers would highlight the 'highhandedness' of the Trinamool Congress cadres in the rural areas. The party's campaign would aim to portray how the Central government would change rural Bengal, not Mamata Banerjee.
Interestingly, a key issue that the BJP would raise in the panchayat election campaign is how the
Banerjee government has renamed different Centre-sponsored welfare schemes.
“As a mater of fact, we have decided that changing of names of our Central government projects would be our prime focus,” West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.
The Banerjee government has changed names of several Centre-sponsored projects because the state is sharing 40 per cent cost of such projects.
These projects are Swacchh Bharat Abhiyan, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Antodaya Yojna (for free distribution of rice), Pradhan Mantri Gramodya Yojna (for rural housing), Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojna (for rural electrification) and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yogna (rural road connectivity). If sources are to be believed, the names of many more projects could be changed in the future by the TMC.
A senior West Bengal cabinet minister defended the renaming, saying, “There is nothing wrong in changing names as we are putting almost same amount of money like Central government. In fact, Central government also changed the names of many projects given by the previous government.”
Countering this, the BJP said the projects initiated by UPA government had been 'completely' changed and different allocations and structures were attached to it.
“All of these projects are the brainchild of our prime minister. We will go villages and tell the people what West Bengal chief minister has done. We will also tell people how the local leaders are even misappropriating funds sent by Central government,” said Ghosh.
Despite the rhetoric, many BJP leaders concede that they don't imagine their party winning the panchayat elections because these are conducted by the State Election Commission, which comes under the West Bengal government.
“So we will not get an impartial administration to listen to us. However, we would give a big fight. It is a quarterfinal for us. The semifinal would be next year's Lok Sabha election and the final would be 2021 Assembly election,” said a leader.