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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kickstart the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lok Sabha campaign in Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal from Friday. He will be on a two-day visit to the state, crucial to his plans for a third straight term in office.

The prime minister’s visit to West Bengal comes amid the ongoing unrest in Sandeshkhali, a village in North 24 Parganas, where several women have levelled serious allegations of sexual assault against the now arrested local Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan.

According to a statement released by Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Modi will lay the foundation stone of development projects worth ₹7,200 crore in Hooghly’s Arambagh. On Saturday, he will reach Krishnanagar in Nadia district where he will inaugurate, dedicate and lay the foundation stone of development projects worth ₹15,000 crore.

“Lakhs of people will be present in the rally,” BJP’s Bengal chief Sukant Majumdar told ANI.

Out of 42 seats, the BJP had won 18 seats while the TMC had bagged 22 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Last Saturday, the party had held several rounds of meetings with state leaders for the upcoming general elections.

“The law-and-order situation in Bengal, particularly, violence against the cadre and the appeasement politics of Mamata Bannerjee were discussed,” a leader told HT.

Last year, Union home minister Amit Shah had set a target of 35 seats for the BJP in Bengal. “Complete that beginning in 2024. Give BJP more than 35 seats and make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister once again. The only way to end the rule of lawlessness by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew is to usher in a BJP government,” Shah had said at a rally in Birbhum last year, referring to his party’s performance of 77 seats in the assembly elections in 2021.

The BJP has been relentlessly attacking the TMC over Shahjahan who is now in 10-day police custody. “This isn’t an arrest, it’s a mutual adjustment,” said state Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, in Sandeshkhali.

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