5 Visits In 30 Days: Why BJP’s Bhupendra Yadav Is Quietly Camping In Bengal | Elections News

Bhupendra Yadav may not be a regular media face like Dharmendra Pradhan, but he understands the power of communication. (PTI)

Having delivered Gujarat in a tough time and swung Madhya Pradesh from an anti-incumbency mood, BJP general secretary and Union minister Bhupendra Yadav has received probably the toughest assignment of his career—to deliver West Bengal as BJP’s election in-charge of the state.

While Yadav has mostly shunned the local media and not held any big-ticket outreach among the cadre, he isn’t sitting idle either. Between attending COP in Baku as environment minister and attending Cabinet meetings in Delhi, the BJP’s backroom strategist has visited poll-bound West Bengal at least five times in the last one month.

OCTOBER 24

Yadav came to Kolkata for a day of brainstorming and election micro-strategy when he drove straight from Kolkata airport to BJP’s Salt Lake party office where he was locked in through the day with the state’s top leadership. Sources say the meeting went on till so late that Yadav reached the airport at the eleventh hour.

In the meeting, in which state in-charge Sunil Bansal was also in attendance, Yadav is believed to have stressed on the need for an awareness campaign on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). According to sources, the BJP then planned to set up awareness camps across the border districts of West Bengal to inform people about the provisions of CAA in the run-up to the election. The primary aim of these camps is to assist people with CAA registration and clear misconceptions surrounding the law.

OCTOBER 31

Within seven days, Yadav was back in Kolkata. However, this time he was in the city for a brainstorming session with the likes of BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar, and party leader Agnimitra Paul among others.

If CAA awareness drive was his focus last time, this time it was SIR. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls undertaken by the Election Commission, and how aggressively the ruling TMC is opposing it, featured in that discussion, say sources. The issue of alleged illegal entry of Bangladeshis in Bengal was also discussed, News18 has learnt. During his stay, it was Yadav’s idea to raise the matter of alleged threat of TMC Cooch Behar district chairman to a BLO after which the Bengal BJP shot off a letter to the CEO of the poll body.

NOVEMBER 6-9

In the beginning of November, Yadav came to Bengal with time in his hand and this time he went beyond Kolkata. On November 6, he went to two BJP district offices—Sreerampur and Howrah Rural. On 7th, he went to Barasat before coming back to the Salt Lake office of the party. On 8th, he kept just one visit—Ranaghat—which is 85 kms from Kolkata but takes more than two hours by road. The idea wasn’t to just touch-and-go but spend time and understand organisational flaws, if any. The next day, he visited Baruipur—34 kms from Kolkata—before flying back to Delhi with the collated knowledge.

His choice of places suggests focus on districts like Nadia, Hoogly, and North 24 Parganas which clutter around Kolkata and did not yield a respectable vote share for the BJP in the 2021 assembly election. The idea seems to be clear—target urban and semi-urban voters around Kolkata where the BJP hasn’t meaningfully breached the bastion.

NOVEMBER 14

For the BJP, November 14 is not just any calendar date; it was the date when Bihar’s result was announced in which the NDA swept back to power with a brute majority. Almost simultaneously, Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav were appointed election in-charges of Bihar and Bengal. After the result was clear, the weight on Yadav’s shoulder became heavier.

As the BJP HQ at 6A, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, was getting decked up for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to arrive and deliver the customary victory speech, Yadav landed at the Kolkata airport at 3.15pm to attend the Bengal BJP’s core committee meeting. By 4pm, he was at the Salt Lake office where the state leadership and state in-charges were huddled.

As he periodically does, Yadav checked on the progress of BJP’s communication strategy and progress over issues like poor law-and-order situation, alleged corruption, and illegal immigration that the BJP thinks matter to voters.

As Yadav and his colleagues were clicked going through bundles of pages on the evening of November 14, the prime minister turned the attention towards Bengal, saying: “Ganga flows from Bihar to Bengal and will create path of victory for BJP”.

NOVEMBER 27-28

A day after chairing a high-level meeting to make Delhi-NCR region green, Yadav flew straight to Bengal’s Durgapur area where he camped overnight. He spent the day at the BJP’s district office. Next morning, he went to nearby Asansol and spent the day there. By late evening, he reached Salt Lake office where a meeting was about to begin.

Sources told News18 that Yadav set the tone of the meeting and left for Delhi by 9pm. But BJP did not wind up. The party carried out what it called a ‘Media Training Exercise’ where guests were Bansal, Tripura’s former CM and state election co-incharge Biplab Deb, BJP’s national IT Cell head and Bengal co-incharge Amit Malviya, along with Samik Bhattacharya, BJP’s state president.

Yadav may not be a regular media face like Dharmendra Pradhan, but he understands the power of communication. BJP’s media panelists were given ‘to do’ lists and ‘what not to do’ basics through powerpoint presentation on a large screen.

BJP’s state media co-incharge Keya Ghosh says it shows the party is “very serious” about Bengal. “The corruption, infiltrations, and law-and-order breakdowns have upset people. We as a political party come in here to assure that those ills will be defeated. Yadav, along with Biplab Deb, Sunil Bansal and lakhs of silent cadres, will ensure that. He is a team player,” says Ghosh.