The BJP is likely to give the Lok Sabha ticket from the Bashirhat to a woman who is a resident of Sandeshkhali. The said candidate has been short-listed, and though she is not actively involved in politics, her family members are a part of the BJP.
As per BJP strategists, this has been decided to give a ‘loud message’ to the women voters of the state that the BJP was with them in what the BJP leaders called their ‘fight against TMC goons’. There are 3.7 crore women voters in West Bengal of the total 7.5 crore voters.
New Delhi based party sources told the Daily Guardian that some of the women victims who allegedly faced sexual atrocities at the hands of Trinamool Congress leaders including Sheikh Shahjahan, will sit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on stage during his public rally at Barasat, that borders Basirhat, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning. They are likely to share their ordeal with the PM during their interaction.
Sandeshkhali assembly segment is a part of the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat. On 2 March the BJP had released a list of 20 candidates out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The rest are likely to be announced by Thursday.
According to party leaders, except Modi and the Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari and the BJP state president, Sukanta Majumdar, there will be no male members of the party on the stage.
The party is working to bring at least 40,000-50,000 women for the rally from Barasat, Barrackpore, Bongaon and Basirhat to the rally. The sources said that during this address by Modi, which will happen just one day before the ‘Women’s day”, women spectators will sit in the front and the male spectators will be asked to sit in the background.
Right now the seat is represented by the TMC’s Nusrat Jahan who is facing significant anti-incumbency amidst complaints of her not giving time to the voters of the constituency. In the last election the candidate, Sayantan Basu had stood second while getting 4.31 lakh votes or 30 percent of the total votes polled, which was almost 12 percent more than what the BJP had got in 2014 polls.
In a related development, the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the Bengal government to hand over the custody of #SheikhShahjahan to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Shahjahan who was on the run for more than 50 days was arrested on February 29 after the High court gave the state government an ultimatum to arrest him. Shahjahan and his aides have been accused of sexual atrocities on women and land grabbing in Sandeshkhali.
The small island in the Sundarban delta in West Bengal’s North 24-Parganas district had first grabbed the national headlines on 5 January after a team of the Enforcement Directorate that had gone to question him were attacked by his supporters and helped Shahjahan escape.
In an event that folded after that, local women came out against him, burnt his properties and shared allegations of how he and his aides would sexually molest the local women. Later under mounting pressure, the local police on 17 February, added charges of gangrape and attempted murder against Shahjahan’s associates.