WB polls: All hands on deck for BJP as Shah leads fight to defeat Mamata Banerjee

New Delhi: West Bengal is set to witness a high-decibel contest in the upcoming assembly polls with the BJP deploying all its might -- from the booth level to the central war-room -- under the direct command of the party's key strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to wrest power from the ruling TMC.

While the BJP's tally surged from three to 77 seats in the last assembly polls, emerging as the main opposition, the party is confident that this time its push at the ground level, accompanied by the churning caused by Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the "cracks" within the TMC, will help it to end Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's 15-year reign, several BJP leaders have said.

On December 30, Shah asserted that the BJP will oust the Mamata Banerjee government by winning the upcoming polls with a two-thirds majority. Setting the tone for the elections, he attacked the ruling TMC, raising the issues of corruption, misgovernance and infiltrators.

The Union home minister also accused the TMC government of "dangerously altering" the state's demography by abetting the infiltration of Bangladeshis for electoral gains, and promised that the BJP will create a strong "national security grid" that will completely end infiltration from West Bengal if voted to power.

BJP sources said the party has done “a lot of ground work” to make inroads in the TMC-ruled West Bengal over the last five years and is further building on its efforts with a renewed strategy in the run-up to the elections.

Shah has already made it clear that the BJP will fight this election in West Bengal on the issues of Bangladeshi infiltration, women's safety, political violence and corruption, they said.

“The party is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to win Bengal this time. We are working on several strategies to gain success,” a BJP leader said, adding, ”Home Minister Amit Shah is personally overseeing all the campaigns and other efforts being made on the ground.” “Mamata Banerjee faces mounting pressure ahead of the assembly elections as the cracks within the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have been widening with Humayun Kabir launching a new party,” the BJP leader said.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also created a buzz in the political circles, he said.

BJP leaders believe that Kabir will “significantly dent” the ruling TMC’s poll prospects by splitting Muslim votes as he has announced that his party will contest the polls.

On Friday, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee maintained an aggressive stand, asserting that the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation will win at least one seat more than its tally five years ago.

In 2021, the TMC had won 216 seats in the 294-member assembly, up five seats from its 2016 count. The BJP won 77 seats, reducing the Left-Congress tally to zero.