Union home minister Amit Shah will in September visit Bihar to kickstart the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ‘Mission 2024’ campaign with an eye on the next Lok Sabha elections, a month after the party was ousted from power by the Janata Dal (United).
Shah will hold public meetings in Purnia and Kishanganj during his two-day tour of Bihar from September 23. This will be his first visit to the state after the NDA lost power in early August, and second trip since July 31.
Confirming the visit, Union minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai said on Monday that Shah will stay in the Seemanchal area on September 23 and 24. “A big rally has been organised in Purnia on September 23. All senior party leaders of Bihar will be present in rallies. The next day he will be in Kishanganj and address a rally there as well,” he said.
Though the exact details of his Kishanganj visit were not available, party leaders familiar with the visit said that Shah will also hold meetings with border officials on issues such as infiltration as several districts in Seemanchal share the national boundary with Bangladesh and has a heavy concentration of Muslim population.
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BJP leaders believe that the two places hold utmost importance in the party’s ‘Mission 2024’ plan and to prepare future grounds for assembly polls in 2025. Of the four Lok Sabha seats in the region, BJP won only one – Araria – while its then alliance partner, the JD(U) won from Katihar and Purnia, the two traditional BJP seats. The Kishanganj Lok Sabha seat went to the Congress.
“The aim is to first wrest the two seats from JD(U), to break into the stronghold of the Grand Alliance, make inroads in Kishanganj and increase the number of MLAs from the region, which sends 24 legislators to the assembly,” said a BJP leader.
Of the 24 assembly constituencies in the region, the present ‘Mahagathbandhan’ comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal, JD(U), Congress and the Left have 16 MLAs in a house of 243. Of the 16, the Congress and the RJD have five MLAs each, while the JD(U) has four.
The region also has a strong presence of EBC (economically backward classes) and OBC (other backward classes) votes.
Meanwhile, the ruling JD(U) is a little jittery over Shah’s visit to Kishanganj as it fears the BJP may flare up communal tensions. “The BJP’s politics hinges on engineering communal tensions. This is getting reflected in the choice of the place for the very first trip of the Amit Shah,” JD(U) parliamentary board chief Upendra Kushwaha said.
“But it will prove to be a failure. The BJP’s plan to cash in on communalism in Bihar will fail just like it did in West Bengal ahead of the assembly elections last year,” said the JD(U) leader.
