The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Bengal unit is setting up a “media-centre” at a five-star hotel in Kolkata to run its poll campaign.
The party has reportedly booked rooms to conduct press conferences and hold other political meetings ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled in April-May 2021. Hotel rooms in various parts of the city are also likely to be booked as several senior leaders would be campaigning in Bengal in the coming days, according to a report of The Telegraph.
Opposition parties have said that the Election Commission should keep an eye on expenditure ahead of the elections.
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The party has been functioning from four floors of its new office in Hastings, including its IT team. Most of the top leaders have designated rooms in the building. In addition the Hastings address, Bengal BJP has renovated its headquarters at 6 Muralidhar Sen Lane, in central Kolkata.
After the election dates are announced, journalists may no longer have access to the Hastings office, and press conferences are likely to be mostly be held at the city five-star hotel.
The BJP held a press conference at Hotel Hindustan International on Wednesday, where a number of actors from Tollygunge joined the party. BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta said that the facility at HHI is a place from where such events will be held from now.
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The BJP is also likely to book some guest rooms in other star hotels in order to manage the upcoming elections, as many top leaders of the party will be visiting the state more often in the coming says.
According to the report, the BJP had similarly booked a portion of a hotel in Patna during the 2019 elections in Bihar, where senior leaders and star campaigners had stayed during their visits to the state. Party media centres have also operated from hotels.
The BJP’s use of a “luxurious” Rath in its ongoing Paribartan Yatra, has drawn criticism from the Opposition. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently said that the party is using people’s money to spend a time of luxury in five-star raths.
