The BJP will begin an intensive outreach campaign across the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area from September 17, as it prepares for civic polls expected in November and seeks to build its organisation across 209 proposed wards.
The campaign plan was discussed at two meetings held on Tuesday by Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar, who is the BJP’s in-charge for the KMC elections. The meetings were attended by organisational district heads from north and south Calcutta, according to The Telegraph.
The KMC currently has 144 wards. That number is expected to rise to 209 after an ongoing delimitation process is completed. The proposed increase will reshape the electoral map of Kolkata and determine the areas in which candidates and political organisations will operate during the civic contest.
Majumdar said the party would focus first on strengthening its organisational presence in every proposed ward. The BJP’s outreach will begin on September 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, as part of a month-long Seva Sankalp Abhiyan. The party plans to hold programmes in individual wards and smaller neighbourhood pockets involving young people, women, elderly residents, its cultural wing and members of the intelligentsia.
“First, we have directed all our leaders to do the needful to strengthen the party’s organisation in the KMC area even more. The leaders will start the outreach soon to strengthen the organisation in the city. We want to complete the organisational strengthening process before Durga Puja,” Majumdar told The Telegraph.
He said the September 17 programme would also include events marking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 25 years in public service. The BJP intends to use the campaign to expand its presence at the neighbourhood level before the civic election process advances.
The KMC was dissolved after the mayor and most councillors resigned, following the BJP’s return to power in the state this summer, according to the report. The Trinamool Congress-led civic body had previously governed the corporation. A source cited by The Telegraph said the BJP was seeking to win most of the proposed wards and regarded Majumdar’s organisational experience as important to its campaign.
The political preparations are taking place alongside wider questions about elected civic administration and the delivery of municipal services. A full-fledged civic body is required to provide services to Kolkata residents, the source said. The report did not specify the date on which the KMC election notification would be issued or when the delimitation process would formally conclude.
The issue of delayed local elections has also reached Calcutta High Court. Mustafizur Rahman, the lone CPM MLA from Murshidabad’s Domkal, filed a public interest litigation on Tuesday seeking immediate elections to the Domkal municipality, which he said had been run by an administrator since 2022. The court accepted the PIL, but the date of hearing was not available in the report.
The BJP’s ward-level campaign is scheduled to begin on September 17, with the party aiming to complete its organisational strengthening before Durga Puja. The final number of KMC wards and the election timetable will depend on the completion of delimitation and subsequent official decisions.
