PM Modi's Bengal Rally: How Matua Voters Could Decide 2026 Election Battle

As per the tentative schedule of the Prime Minister, he will arrive at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata from New Delhi by a special plane at around 10.30 a.m. From there, he will leave for Ranaghat town by helicopter.

After landing at the helipad at Ranaghat at around 11.15 a.m., the Prime Minister will leave for Taherpur by road.

At Taherpur, there will be two separate platforms nearby. From one dais, the Prime Minister will first inaugurate some central government projects in West Bengal virtually.

Additionally, according to insiders from the West Bengal unit of the BJP, PM Modi is unlikely to make any political comments during that programme.

Thereafter, he will be going to the second dais from where he will be addressing a political rally. In both programmes, the Prime Minister will be accompanied by Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari.

"Trinamool Congress, in its attempt to create a negative narrative against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, will affect the Matuas most. The Prime Minister, at his Taherpur rally today, is expected to address the negative narratives by the ruling party and allay the fears of the people from the Matua community in the matter," said a state committee member of the BJP in West Bengal.

Matuas are people from the socially backward Hindu community who came to West Bengal as religious refugees from neighbouring Bangladesh over a period of time; they constitute a substantial percentage of voters in two Bangladesh-bordering West Bengal districts -- North 24 Parganas and Nadia.

Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, a substantial section of the Matua voters had been supporting the BJP in every election.

According to political observers, if the BJP wants to fulfil its dreams to grab power in West Bengal after the Assembly elections scheduled next year, it is very important to get its candidates elected from the Matua-dominated constituencies throughout the state, especially in Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts.

Probably, that is why the party has chosen Ranaghat as the venue for the mega rally from where the Prime Minister will be kicking off the party's counter-campaign against Trinamool Congress' propaganda on the SIR-impact on the Matua voters," a city-based political observer said.

Political observers also feel that the fact that the BJP is starting the campaigning for the Assembly polls so early, and that too involving the Prime Minister, proves that their recent slogan 'After Odisha in 2024 and Bihar in 2025, it will be West Bengal in 2026', following the recent landslide victory in Bihar, was not simply a figure of speech.

- IANS