Rath-yatra will be held when permission is granted, no change in route: West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh

A five-member team from the West Bengal branch of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called on the top brass of the state government at the city police headquarters Lalbazar on Thursday to discuss the possibilities of organising the party’s rath-yatra, that has already suffered a major blow.

A division bench of the Calcutta High Court had asked the chief secretary, home secretary and the state director-general of police to discuss the matter with BJP representatives and to inform the court by Friday.

A five-member team including BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, senior leaders Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvarghiya called on the chief secretary, home secretary, and director-general of state police at Lalbazar.

After a half an hour meeting, Ghosh told reporters outside Lalbazar that the BJP had made no changes in the route of the “save democracy” rallies of the party and they would organise it the moment the clearance comes. He added that the BJP’s national president Amit Shah wanted to inaugurate all three rallies and the dates would be fixed according to his availability.

However, the BJP is having to deal with one blow after another. To begin with, the single bench of the High Court had earlier said the party could not hold the rally as it might cause “communal tension” following the government’s report submitted before the court. Later, the party moved the division bench. The matter is now pending in court.

Meanwhile, the results of the Assembly elections in the three states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — where BJP has gone out of power has also caused a lot of damage to the morale of the party workers in Bengal.

The BJP’s rathyatra was originally scheduled to be flagged off from Cooch Behar last Friday by the party’s national president Amit Shah. There were plans for two other rallies by the BJP – one to be flagged off from Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9 and another from Birbhum’s Tarapith on December 14. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address a rally in Kolkata as the three yatras conclude.

The massive rath-yatra is scheduled to cover all 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. But the state government denied permission and submitted to the High Court that the rally might cause communal tension.