Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday inaugurated BSF’s floating border outposts (BOPs) at Hingalganj in Sunderbans area of North 24 Parganas district and flagged off a boat ambulance, as he arrived on a two-day visit to West Bengal, his first since the 2021 assembly polls.
Shah also interacted with senior BSF officials during the occasion.
The number of floating BOPs has been increased with a view to boosting surveillance in the inaccessible areas of the Sunderbans, officials said.
The boat ambulance is aimed at providing medical assistance in the isolated regions of the Sunderbans from Saheb Khali to Shamsher Nagar, they said.
Later in the afternoon, Shah will lay the foundation stone of ‘Maitri Sangrahalaya’ at Haridaspur - a museum to raise public awareness about the bravery of the BSF during the 1971 India-Pakistan war.
He will also address a public meeting at Siliguri in the evening.
Shah arrived at the Kolkata airport in the morning, where he was received by senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nisith Pramanik and state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar.
On Friday, he will visit the India-Bangladesh border area of Teen Bigha, where he is scheduled to interact with BSF personnel.
The Union Minister, after attending a programme at Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata later on Friday, will hold a meeting with office-bearers at state BJP headquarters. According to reports, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has not been invited for the event at Victoria Memorial Hall.
BJP looks to bounce back
His visit to West Bengal comes at a time when the BJP looks to tone up its organisational machinery in the state, which has been plagued by internal squabbles and defections since the 2021 assembly poll results.
The state BJP unit has carefully crafted its political engagements, with multiple programmes slotted for North Bengal, where it made deep inroads both in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2021 assembly polls, party sources said.
In Kolkata, the top leader is set to attend an event to celebrate the inscription of 'Durga Puja' on the Unesco list of intangible cultural heritage.
This will be Shah's first visit to the state post-2021 assembly polls, where despite its high-pitch poll campaign, the BJP managed to bag only 77 of 294 seats. The TMC, led by feisty Mamata Banerjee, stormed to power for the third consecutive time, riding on the "Bengali Pride" poll plank, and bagging 213 seats.
Since the declaration of poll results in 2021, the state unit had been fighting hard to keep its flock together as former union minister Babul Supriyo, five legislators, including its national vice president Mukul Roy, and several leaders switched over to the TMC in a span of one year.
(With inputs from PTI)
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