The minority-dominated Murshidabad district will be the most likely venue for a public meeting by Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his probable visit to West Bengal next month.
This would be his second visit to the state in less than a month. On April 14, he attended a public rally at Suri in Birbhum district where he said that if the people of West Bengal gifts BJP with 35 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2024 polls, there is a possibility of the Trinamool Congress-run state government to collapse even before 2025.
A state-committee member of BJP in West Bengal said that the Union minister has himself expressed interest in attending the public rally in Murshidabad district next month.
"In all probability, he will be arriving in Kolkata on May 8 and the same day he will be addressing the rally in Murshidabad. On May 9, he will be in Kolkata and attend a cultural function on account of the birth anniversary celebration of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. He is also expected to hold a meeting with the top state leadership of the party the same day before flying back to New Delhi," he said.
It is learnt that the BJP's state president in West Bengal and the party Lok Sabha member Sukanta Majumdar has held a preparatory meeting with the party's Murshidabad district leadership on this count on Thursday.
Murshidabad district, being one of the largest districts in the state has three Lok Sabha constituencies -- Baharampur, Murshidabad and Jangipur. Traditionally a stronghold of Congress, in the last two elections, the voters from the district have substantially shifted to Trinamool Congress.
However, in the recently concluded bypolls for Sagardighi Assembly constituency in the district, Congress made a spectacular comeback with the Left Front- supported Congress candidate Bayron Biswas winning from the seat by a huge majority. The state Congress president in West Bengal Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the five-time party MP from Baharampur Lok Sabha since 1999.