Kolkata: The BJP has decided to shift the venue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in North 24 Parganas’ Thakurnagar, as the site where it was scheduled to be held has been booked by the Trinamool Congress.
The ground, where Modi was supposed to address the mega gathering on February 2, has been booked by Mamata Banerjee’s party for a week-long religious programme.
According to BJP leaders, the venue was also not big enough and did not meet the security requirements. “We will organise the rally on February 2 at Thakurnagar but the land or the venue where we were supposed to organise it has been changed and it has been shifted to another a nearby ground,” BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told PTI.
“It has been done mainly due to two reasons — the new ground is much bigger than the previous one and secondly TMC had already booked the previous venue for religious programme. So we didn’t want to take any risk,” he said.
Modi’s proposed rally is of immense political significance as the area is known as the hub of Matua community and is near the house of its matriarch Binapani Debi.
Matuas with an estimated population of three million in Bengal exhorts influence in at least five Lok Sabha seats in North and South 24 Parganas districts.
The community originally hails from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
According to BJP sources, this will be one of the areas where the saffron brigade will campaign about the Citizenship Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8. (PTI)
