JP Nadda to campaign in West Bengal as Narendra Modi predicts BJP will form govt

The battle for West Bengal is heating up and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leaving no stone unturned to make its mark. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have been involved in heated exchanges, on Monday it will be BJP national president JP Nadda taking charge of campaigning for the party. Nadda will start his day with a public meeting in Sreerampur in the morning. This will be followed by a roadshow at Tollygunge at 1 pm. The BJP national president will then move to Chinsurah for his last public meeting of the day. These meetings and roadshow come a day before the crucial third-phase polling in West Bengal and Assam. Besides these two states, voting will also take place in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. At an election rally in the 24 Parganas district on Saturday, the prime minister once again invoked the “son of the soil” point, saying his party will appoint a “bhumiputra” as the chief minister after winning the elections. Modi also predicted the loss of Mamata in Nandigram, where she is facing her one-time protege and now-BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari. He said he will be attending the oath ceremony when the BJP wins the elections. Not just that, Modi also said that with Trinamool now saying that Mamata will contest elections from Varanasi in 2024, she has already accepted her defeat. The Bengal chief minister has also been hitting back at the BJP leaders, and Modi in particular, in equal measure. Responding to Modi’s prediction that his party will win elections, Mamata on Sunday asked if he was God or superman who he knew everything. On Tuesday, another 31 seats will go to the polls in West Bengal that has a total of 294 seats in the Assembly. The polling for the remaining five phases will take place on 10, 17, 22, 26 and 29 April. The results for all the states will be declared on 2 May.