After Shah, Nadda to visit Bengal for Durga Puja

KOLKATA: After Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President J.P. Nadda will visit Kolkata on Saturday on the occasion of Maha Saptami.

State BJP sources said that Nadda is slated to arrive in Kolkata on Saturday morning, will visit some community Puja pandals and interact with the organisers as well as the visitors there.

As per the initial schedule, said a BJP state committee member, the party’s national president is scheduled to visit the pandals of three community puja committees on that day. “He is unlikely to give any political message during that visit. In all probability he will fly back to New Delhi on the same evening,” the state committee member of the party said.

According to him, the Durga Puja festival this year is being viewed very seriously by the central leadership of the party and an important medium for the party leaders to interact with the common people on the occasion. “In fact, the central leadership has directed the state leaders of the party to get associated with as many Durga Pujas as possible,” he said.

On October 16, the Union Home Minister made a quick visit to Kolkata to inaugurate the community Puja of Santosh Mitra Square at Lebutala Park in central Kolkata, whose principal organiser is the BJP councillor in Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Sajal Ghosh.

On that occasion he sought the blessing of Goddess Durga to free West Bengal of the “violence” and “corruption” in the coming days. “This is not the occasion for making political statements. So, I will not do that now. But I will be frequenting the state more, making political statements and ensuring that there is change in the state,” Shah said on the occasion.

The very next day Governor C.V. Ananda Bose gave a call to the people of West Bengal to take oath in the name of Maa Durga to continue the fight against “corruption” and “violence” in the state.