Bhubaneswar, March 23 The BJP's Odisha unit will handle election management work in 36 assembly segments in neighboring West Bengal, which will vote in two phases on April 23 and 29, a senior party leader said.
Odisha BJP chief Manmohan Samal, who was recently elected to the Rajya Sabha, said, "They (the West Bengal unit) are taking care of the major part of the electioneering. We have been assigned to look after management in only 36 assembly segments, and our people have been deployed in each of the assigned areas."
Samal said the state unit has drawn up a roadmap to actively campaign across six southern districts of the neighboring state.
He said most of the assembly segments assigned to Odisha BJP are located in areas where the Odia language is spoken, while six such seats are in North 24 Parganas and three in Kolkata.
Samal said that party leaders and ministers from Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj, and Keonjhar districts have already started campaigning in West Bengal.
"Our leaders are already in the field, and some of them have been camping in Bengal for over a month. MLAs, MPs, and panchayat-level leaders from Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, and Jajpur districts have also been identified to participate in the campaigns," he said.
BJP MLA Bhaskar Madhei said he has been campaigning in the Gopiballavpur area of Jhargram district, which is located on the border between Odisha and Jharkhand.
"I have friends and relatives in that area," he said.
Meanwhile, state Higher Education Minister Suryabanshi Suraj and Nilgiri MLA Santosh Khatua have undertaken several visits to West Bengal and attended election-related meetings.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, addressing rallies in the neighboring state on March 10, had appealed to people to install a "double-engine" government.
He also emphasized bringing "parivartan" (change) in West Bengal and accused the TMC of running a corrupt government.
Out of the 28 MLAs from the four northern districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj, and Keonjhar, the BJP has 18 members. The party also holds all four Lok Sabha seats in the region.
