BJP banks on Modi to swing the tide in its favour in Kolkata's KMC elections

KOLKATA: The West Bengal unit of BJP has decided to hold a rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds in February that will be addressed by Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi, in its bid to wrest the Kolkata Municipal Corporation when polls are held in April. A senior BJP leader admitted in private that they were banking heavily on Modi to kick of the campaign and wrest KMC from the ruling Trinamool Congress. Elections to KMC and 90 other civic bodies are considered the biggest polls before the crucial assembly elections in 2016 and BJP is making all efforts to perform well in the civic polls.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced that Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee would continue to run the civic body for the second consecutive term. But electors have no idea about BJP's mayoral candidate yet. BJP national secretary Sidharth Nath Singh told ET recently, “We are open about projecting someone as our mayoral candidate for KMC elections.” State BJP leaders also said that they were planning to fight April's KMC polls by projecting someone as would-be mayor. But the party is yet to announce the name even though Banerjee has already declared Chatterjee as her party’s candidate again.

BJP knows that the state election commission and law and order during polls would be under the control of the state police. BJP state president Rahul Sinha has already alerted party workers about this. “We may not get central forces during the civic elections. We know that the ruling party might get some benefit during civic elections. But we have full confidence in the people,” Sinha told ET.

Apart from KMC, about 90 municpalities across the state will go for polls in April and none of these civic bodies are under BJP's control. Even in KMC, BJP has just three councillors out of 141 municipal wards.

Even though the party has claimed that more than 1 lakh Muslims have joined them, it might be hard for them to secure Muslim support in areas like Park Circus, Garden Reach, Rajabazar, Metiabruz that are Muslim-dominated under KMC. The defeat of BJP candidate Ritesh Tiwari in Chowringhee assembly byelections indicates that BJP is yet to establish political dominance in the city.