West Bengal Elections: Amit Shah, Mamata Banerjee hold rallies, roadshows on last day of Phase 2 campaign

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is already confident that BJP will win over 200 seats in West Bengal, will have a tightly-scheduled campaign on Tuesday in the state. Shah was in Nandigram at noon for the first of his three roadshows in Bengal today. From there, he moved to Debra for another roadshow in the afternoon. The minister will have his third roadshow of the day in Panskura Paschim after 3 pm. This will be followed by a public meeting in Diamond Harbour at 4.40 pm, the party said on Twitter. Of the four venues, everyone has their eyes set on Nandigram, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is going to lead a roadshow. The Nandigram constituency is also crucial because Banerjee is up against her former colleague-and-protege, now a BJP leader, Suvendu Adhikari. Meanwhile, Dharmendra Pradhan, another Union Minister, unleashed a fresh salvo on Banerjee, saying she had lost her mental balance after seeing a negative response in Nandigram. “Speaking about UP instead of condoling her (elderly mother of a BJP worker) death is like running away from responsibilities. She is scared of defeat,” Pradhan was quoted as saying by News18. While the TMC and BJP are expected to give each other tough competition, the other coalition in the fray comprises Congress, Left and the ISF. In the first phase of voting on 27 March, West Bengal witnessed nearly an 80 percent turnout. After the conclusion of the first phase of elections in Bengal, Shah said he was confident BJP will win at least 27 of the 30 seats that went to the polls on Saturday.