Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived here on Thursday for a two- day tour to West Bengal. This is Shah's first tour to the state after the 2021 Assembly polls. Incidentally, on this day last year, Mamata Banerjee was sworn in as the chief minister of West Bengal for the third consecutive programme. From Kolkata, Shah will reach Hingalganj in the Indo-Bangladesh border area in North 24 Parganas district. He will inaugurate six modern floating border outposts (BOP) of the Border Security Force (BSF) and also a boat ambulance to provide medical assistance in the inaccessible area of Sundarbans from Saheb Khali to Shamsher Nagar. The BOPs are named as Sutlej, Narmada, Kaveri, Ganga, Sabarmati and Krishna. The number of floating BOPs has been increased to enhance surveillance in the inaccessible areas of Sunderbans, the BSF said. After inaugurating the floating BOPs, he will also lay the foundation stone of Maitri Sangrahalaya (museum) located at BOP Haridaspur and will attend Prahari Sammelan. In Haridaspur the Union home minister will also have his lunch along with the BSF personnel and officers.
From there he will head to Siliguri in North Bengal's Darjeeling district and address a public rally at Railway Institute Ground. There is also a possibility of the Home Minister having a meeting with the representatives of different political and non-political organisations based out of Darjeeling this evening. All eyes are now on his public rally at Siliguri where he is expected to give a message to the BJP workers in the state in the backdrop of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. On May 6, Union Home Minister will be visiting the Teen Bigha and will interact with the BSF personnel at the BOP Jhikabari at 9.30 a.m. in Cooch Behar district while in the afternoon, he will be meeting the MPs, MLAs and state office-bearers at Hotel Westin in Kolkata. After meeting with the BJP leaders, Shah will attend the 'Mukti-Matrika', a cultural event by the Ministry of Culture to celebrate the inscription of Durga Puja on the UNESCO list of 'Intangible Cultural Heritage' at 6 p.m. at Victoria Memorial, Kolkata. This will be his first visit to the state after the 2021 West Bengal Assembly poll wherein the party could not defeat the ruling All India Trinamool Congress which eventually came to power again.