BJP leaders to visit homes of 129 killed workers

New Delhi: As part of the electoral campaign ahead of the crucial 2021 Assembly elections in Bengal, the top ranks of the BJP’s central leadership are likely to visit the homes of all the BJP workers who have been killed in Bengal over the last three years.
According to sources within the BJP, leaders like Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP’s national party president J.P. Nadda will visit the homes of all the 129 party workers who have been killed in West Bengal over the last three years.
The visit to the homes of all these party workers are likely to start from next week when Amit Shah will be in Bengal. Shah and Nadda will visit these homes during the course of the election to send out a message to the party cadres in the state that the top leadership of the party stands by the sacrifices that the workers have been making for the party in the state.
Senior BJP leaders from Bengal that The Sunday Guardian spoke to have said that the party has already prepared the list of all the 129 workers who have been killed with details of the family members and their residences and a programme for such home visits is being chalked out. Amit Shah is likely to visit the homes of at least 86 workers of the BJP who have been killed due to political violence in Bengal, while Nadda would be visiting the houses of 43 BJP karyakartas who have been killed.
A senior BJP leader from Bengal told this correspondent: “Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda would be meeting the family members of our karyakartas who have been killed in Bengal by the TMC over the last three years. The two leaders are also likely to spend some time with the family members of those karyakartas where they would try to understand the difficulties they have been facing since they were killed. The party top bosses are likely to extend some helping hand to these families.”
The BJP leader also said that the visits would amount to a morale boost for all the BJP party workers in the state and would send out a message across the party ranks here in Bengal that the topmost leadership of the party is with them and that they would focus on winning the “crucial” elections for the party. Sources from the BJP have also said that both Shah and Nadda are also likely to have lunch with some of the family members of those karyakartas who have been killed in their homes, when they visit their region.
The BJP has claimed that around 129 BJP karyakartas have been killed allegedly by the TMC in Bengal since 2018. On 28 September 2019, on the day of Mahalaya, BJP’s national president had also performed a “mass tarpan” at Bagbazar Ghat in Kolkata, for 82 party workers who lost their lives in political violence in West Bengal in the last few years. “Tarpan” is a ritual in which water is offered to ancestors with prayers for peace to the departed souls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his oath-taking ceremony in May 2019, had also invited at least 32 families of the BJP workers who were killed in political violence in Bengal.