Amit Shah to visit Kolkata for state committee, public meet

Kolkata, West Bengal: BJP national president Amit Shah will visit the West Bengal capital on September seven to attend the party's state committee meeting and also address a public meeting ahead of assembly bypolls.

"Earlier it was decided that the state committee meeting will be held at Siliguri, but as bypolls for Bashirhat South and Chowringhee assembly seats are scheduled to be held on September 13, it has been decided that the state committee meeting will be held in Kolkata from September 6-7," BJP state president Rahul Sinha said on Tuesday.

He said that the party national president Amit Shah would be present on the last day of the meeting on September seven, and also address a public meeting in the Chowringhee assembly seat.

The deliberations would be initiated by party general secretary Ramlalji on September 6.

Sinha also said that he would send a roadmap to Shah very soon for fighting the assembly bypolls.

BJP was keen to wrest the Bashirhat Dakshin seat from TMC and open its account in the state assembly. The party's Lok Sabha candidate Samik Bhattacharjee led from the assembly segment in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year by 30,000 votes but lost to TMC's Idrish Ali.

In the Chowringhee assembly seat, which was a part of South Kolkata Lok Sabha constituency, TMC had trailed by 1,500 votes to Congress candidate Somen Mitra.

The by-elections were necessitated as CPI-M's sitting legislator in Bashirhat Dakshin, Narayan Mukhopadhyay had died and TMC's Sikha Mitra resigned as legislator from Chowringhee.