PM to visit West Bengal on Friday to launch Rs 5,000 cr projects, address BJP rally

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit West Bengal on Friday afternoon to address a BJP rally in Durgapur and unveil infrastructure projects worth Rs 5,000 crore.

The visit comes in a politically charged backdrop marked by TMC's outcry over alleged harassment of Bengali-speaking migrants in several BJP-ruled states.

This will be Modi's first visit to the state after Samik Bhattacharya was appointed the new Bengal BJP president earlier this month.

"West Bengal is suffering due to TMC misrule. People are seeing the BJP with hope and are convinced that only the BJP can deliver on development. Tomorrow, 18th July, will be addressing a @BJP4Bengal rally in Durgapur. Do join!" the PM posted on X on Thursday night.

With West Bengal slated to go to the polls next year, the PM's visit is being seen as a high-voltage political manoeuvre by the BJP to consolidate its position in the state.

It comes just days before Trinamool Congress supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's annual Martyrs' Day rally on July 21, where she is expected to issue a clarion call to her party workers ahead of the polls.

In a significant political backdrop to the prime minister's visit, West Bengal is witnessing a wave of protests and strong political rhetoric over the detention and alleged linguistic profiling of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in BJP-governed states, including Assam, Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.

Alleging that Bengalis are being routinely targeted and accused of being "illegal Bangladeshis", Banerjee and the TMC have sharpened their Bengali identity pitch, a strategy that proved electorally effective during the 2021 assembly polls in blunting the BJP's Hindutva narrative.

The TMC leadership has accused the BJP of "criminalising poverty and linguistic profiling" and using national security as a tool to "harass" economically vulnerable migrant workers, turning what began as scattered reports of harassment into a full-blown political flashpoint in Bengal.

Reacting sharply, the BJP has blamed the TMC government for the confusion over citizenship documentation.

"The lines between real citizens and those using forged documents have become increasingly blurred. Thousands of infiltrators from Bangladesh have created fake papers identifying them as Bengal residents and are now roaming across the country as Indians," a Bengal BJP leader said.

As the war of words escalates, the BJP Bengal unit expects the prime minister to use the Durgapur platform to sharpen its counter-narrative and project the Centre's development agenda in contrast to what the party calls the TMC's politics of appeasement and identity mobilisation.

On the development front, the prime minister will launch a slew of development projects worth over Rs 5,000 crore.

"Looking forward to being among the people of West Bengal tomorrow, 18th July. At a programme in Durgapur, will lay the foundation stones for various works and also inaugurate projects worth over Rs. 5000 crore. The projects cover sectors like oil and gas, power, railways, roads," the PM posted on X on Thursday night.