The BJP will launch a ‘Paribartan Yatra’ across West Bengal on Sunday in a bid to sharpen the struggle against the TMC and test its grassroots machinery ahead of the Assembly elections this year.
The program will begin a day after the revised electoral rolls are published under the Special Intensive Review (SIR) process in the state.
During the SIR process, around 63.66 lakh names, nearly 8.3 per cent of voters, have been deleted from the state’s voters’ list since the process began in November last year, bringing down the voter base to over 7.04 lakh crore.
A party leader said the 5,000-kilometre outreach initiative was designed as a mass communication exercise and an organizational pressure test aimed at transforming groundwork at the booth level into visible mobilization on the street.
He said nine yatras will start from Cooch Behar, Krishnanagar, Kulti, Garpeta, Radegi, Islampur, Hassan, Sandeshkhali and Amta, traversing each assembly constituency before culminating in the Brigade Pride parade here, which is expected to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
During the ‘Paribartan Yatra’, the BJP plans to directly reach out to 1-1.5 crore people across 294 assembly constituencies, he said.
“This will be a game-changer for the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections,” a senior BJP leader in the state said.
West Bengal BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya described the yatra as “the next phase of democratic correction in Bengal”.
“After 34 years of Left rule, people voted for change. After fifteen years, there is a demand for another change. Paribartan Yatra is about reconnecting with these sentiments,” he said.
BJP central leaders, including party president Nitin Nabin, JP Nadda and Rajnath Singh, are expected to join the yatra.
After winning 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and emerging as a major challenger to Prime Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, the BJP has waged an aggressive election campaign for 2021. Despite loud rallies and a steady presence of central leaders, it has failed to dislodge the TMC government.
