Narada sting probe- GST stalemate: In Lok Sabha, BJP will turn heat on Trinamool

Eight of the 15 members in the committee are from the BJP. Five active members of the TMC had figured in the Narada sting case: Saugata Roy (Dum Dum), Sultan Ahmad (Uluberia), Suvendu Adhikari (Tamluk), Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (Barasat) and Prasoon Banerjee (Howrah). Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy was also seen to be featured in the footage.

“The BJP did not take the offensive against the TMC as it had supported the government’s legislative business in the Rajya Sabha. The GST was most important among them, but the Chief Minister (Mamata Banerjee) played politics over it. Now the BJP will take a fresh approach on issues involving the TMC,” the BJP leader said.

According to L K Advani, the aggressive approach was “long overdue”. West Bengal, he said, was one of the six states that Amit Shah had mentioned in his first address as party chief to the National Council on August 9, 2014.

“…We will have to make special efforts to win elections and form our governments in states like Assam, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where we have polled a significant percentage of votes. To realise this, we should make the BJP’s effective presence felt in each panchayat, zila parishad, municipal corporation and other elected bodies,” he had said.

Bengal is also one of the seven states where the BJP has identified around 115 seats as its focus for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as it could lose many of the current seats in the Hindi heartland. The Indian Express on September 8 reported that the leadership had identified these seats from Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Northeast.

Programmes have been readied for all these states. While the BJP has already won Assam, in Andhra Pradesh it has prepared a programme to “market” the Centre’s special package for the state. In Kerala, the party expects fresh momentum with the National Council meeting being organised in Kozhikode on September 23-25.

The meeting is expected to highlight the Centre’s schemes for the poor while boosting the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a messiah for the poor and farmers, party leaders said. The BJP has revamped its organisation in BJD-ruled Odisha, where the ruling party broke its alliance with the saffron party in 2009 after being in power together for two terms.

The BJP has lined up protests from the mandal level to state level to attack the state government and cash in on the anti-incumbency factor. In Tamil Nadu, where the ruling AIADMK is considered to be a friendly party, the BJP is planning programmes to come up as a formidable force in the state, sources said.