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‘Unable to mobilise’ crowd, BJP changes PM’s rally venue

KOLKATA: Unsure about whether it could mobilise enough crowd to fill up Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Ground, the BJP today dropped plan of holding a rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ground on February 8 and shifted the venue to Asansol.

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Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service
Kolkata, January 21

Unsure about whether it could mobilise enough crowd to fill up Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Ground, the BJP today dropped plan of holding a rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ground on February 8 and shifted the venue to Asansol.

West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the party’s central leadership was of the view that the time available might not be enough to mobilise crowd big enough to fill up the Brigade.

“Our original plan was to the hold the rally at Brigade at the culmination of the ‘rath yatra’ programme. But the ‘rath yatra’ programme is still in limbo. We may now hold a rally at Brigade in March before the Lok Sabha elections,” Ghosh said.

Attendance was not satisfactory even at the multiparty rally organised by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the Brigade Ground on Saturday to showcase the Opposition unity against the Modi-led government. Aerial pictures published in the CPM mouthpiece “Ganashakti” showed that while the area adjacent to the stage was thickly crowded, there were a lot of empty spaces at the rest of the field.

Banerjee had earlier boasted that the size of the gathering at her “Unite India” rally would surpass all previous records. Since Saturday, she has stopped comparing her rally with historic rallies held at Brigade in the past.

Asansol, where Modi will now be addressing a rally on February 8, is the Lok Sabha constituency of Union Minister Babul Supriyo. The place saw violent communal riots last year. The PM would also address two rallies in the state this month — in Siliguri on January 28 and at Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district on January 31.

The choice of Thakurnagar is significant since the area has a strong population of members of the Matua community who will look forward to what the PM says about the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which is yet to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha. BJP chief Amit Shah will also be addressing two rallies in the state — one at Maldah tomorrow and another at Jhargram on Wednesday.

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