Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit West Bengal on Friday to unveil a string of infrastructure projects worth over Rs 5,200 crore and address a public rally in Dum Dum near here in a politically charged backdrop marked by TMC's protests over alleged harassment of Bengali-speaking migrants in several states.
The prime minister will arrive in Dum Dum on the northeastern fringe of Kolkata from Bihar and first participate in the inauguration of three new Kolkata Metro projects before addressing the party rally, a senior BJP leader said.
The tour comes amid a row over constitutional amendment bills about the removal of the prime minister, chief ministers and ministers after arrest on serious criminal charges.
TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has branded the proposed legislation as "autocratic", a step "more than a super-Emergency" that will "finish" the independence of the judiciary.
On Wednesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three Bills in the Lok Sabha to this effect, triggering uproar from the Opposition before the draft laws were referred to a Joint Committee of Parliament.
"I am eager to be among @BJP4Bengal Karyakartas at a rally in Kolkata. With each passing day, public anger against the TMC is increasing. West Bengal is eagerly looking towards the BJP with hope because of our development agenda," Narendra Modi posted on X.
In another post, the Prime Minister said, "It is always a delight to be among the people of Kolkata, a city whose development we are greatly committed to. Tomorrow's programmes in the city are mainly focused on connectivity. The metro services, which will be flagged off, include Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar, Sealdah-Esplanade and Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay routes. Connectivity to and from the airport as well as the IT hub areas will be enhanced." The chief minister has decided to skip the inauguration of the three new Kolkata Metro projects that the Prime Minister will unveil.
"The decision was taken in the backdrop of harassment faced by migrants from Bengal in several BJP-ruled states," a senior TMC leader said.
Against this backdrop, the BJP expects the Prime Minister to use his Bengal visit to sharpen the party's counter-narrative, projecting development and infrastructure growth in contrast to what it calls the TMC's "politics of appeasement and identity mobilisation".
Banerjee and her party have in recent weeks accused BJP-ruled states such as Assam, Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra and Gujarat of detaining and profiling Bengali-speaking migrants, alleging that they are being branded as "illegal Bangladeshis".
The TMC has sought to turn this into a Bengali identity plank, a strategy that helped it blunt the BJP's Hindutva pitch in the 2021 assembly elections.
On the development front, Modi will inaugurate a 13.61 km-long metro network in Kolkata, marking the first time in 41 years that the city's metro services will directly connect the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport with the rest of the city.
He will flag off the Noapara-Jai Hind Bimanbandar metro service from Jessore Road station and undertake a ride on the route.
Through video conferencing, he will also launch the Sealdah-Esplanade metro service, slashing travel time between the two points from nearly 40 minutes to just 11 minutes, and the Beleghata-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay section, which will bolster connectivity to the IT hub.
A newly constructed subway at Howrah Metro Station will also be inaugurated.
In addition, the Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone for a 7.2 km six-lane elevated Kona Expressway project worth over Rs 1,200 crore. The expressway is expected to significantly cut travel time between Howrah and the surrounding rural areas, and Kolkata, providing a major boost to trade, commerce and tourism.
The BJP's Bengal unit is banking on Modi's rally in Dum Dum to energise its cadres ahead of the electoral battle in 2026, while the TMC is expected to sharpen its attack on what Banerjee has termed the "double assault" of migrant profiling and constitutional overreach.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
