Kolkata: Targeting West Bengal’s Trinamul Congress in what was once its home turf, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kickstart his Assembly election campaign from Haldia in East Midnapore, the Adhikari family bastion, with a BJP rally next week amid the party’s rathyatra led by its president J.P. Nadda and home minister Amit Shah seeking “parivartan” in the poll-bound state.
While Mr Modi’s Haldia visit was already due on February 7, when he will inaugurate three big-ticket Central industrial projects, his political rally was not on the one-day tour agenda as he was supposed to start his campaign only after the poll schedule was announced, BJP sources said.
However, the party’s state and central leadership decided at a meeting in New Delhi Tuesday to hold Mr Modi’s maiden rally for the polls as part of his Haldia tour. State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said: “The PM will visit Haldia to attend a government event. We invited him to address a party rally there…