BJP‘s national president Nitin Nabin flagged off the yatra in Cooch Behar district on Sunday, describing the campaign as a crusade to hold the Trinamool Congress government accountable for alleged widespread corruption.
“Mamata Didi has built an entire industry of corruption, her nephew’s strong-arm tactics, and the misuse of the police. The people of Bengal have now resolved to bring this to an end,” Nabin said.
What is the yatra all about and who are involved?
Amit Shah is set to flag off the rath yatra from Raidighi in South 24 Parganas at 2 p.m., while Rajnath Singh will simultaneously launch another leg of the statewide mobilisation from Howrah, underscoring the party’s coordinated push across West Bengal.
Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will flag off the yatra from Sandeshkhali at 2 p.m., while Nitin Nabin will launch parallel programmes from Malda and Islampur, expanding the party’s campaign footprint across the state.
Nabin said the Parivartan Yatras launched across West Bengal would traverse roughly 5,000 km, carrying the party’s promise of a “new Bengal” to people across the state.
J.P. Nadda, joined by BJP MP and Union Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar, set the campaign rolling from Krishnanagar in Nadia, while Dharmendra Pradhan and Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Suvendu Adhikari flagged off another Parivartan Sankalpa Yatra from Garbeta. In the state’s western belt, Union Minister of Women and Child Development Annapurna Devi and former Union minister Smriti Irani addressed a gathering at Kulti in Asansol before launching yet another leg of the yatra aimed at covering the south-western regions. Devendra Fadnavis has been tasked with inaugurating the Rath Yatra in Birbhum.
All nine yatras are slated to culminate in a show of strength led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata.
Narendra Modi’s Brigade Ground rally
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a mega rally at Brigade Parade Grounds on March 15, bringing the party’s statewide ‘Paribartan Yatra’ to a climactic close.
The announcement followed the release of campaign posters by the West Bengal BJP earlier in the day, ending days of suspense over the Prime Minister’s visit.
The yatra, launched across West Bengal on Sunday, is set to traverse nine of the party’s ten organisational divisions, with the Kolkata Metropolitan area deliberately left out as it focuses on preparing for the March 15 showpiece rally.
The confirmation also settles internal uncertainty, as party sources had earlier indicated that formal word from the Prime Minister’s Office had yet to arrive.
What does the yatra mean for upcoming Bengal elections?
The Bharatiya Janata Party scripted a dramatic breakthrough in West Bengal in the 2019 parliamentary elections, clinching 18 Lok Sabha seats and jolting a political landscape long shaped by the dominance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left bloc for more than three decades.
The saffron surge drew formidable strength from the state’s rural heartland, particularly the western districts of Bankura, Purulia and Bardhaman, while in north Bengal it captured seven of eleven constituencies, notching commanding margins in border strongholds such as Darjeeling, Coochbehar and Alipurduar.
Yet the party’s headline-grabbing ascent proved fleeting. In the fiercely watched 2021 Assembly contest, it fell short of dislodging the entrenched All India Trinamool Congress government, despite months of high-voltage campaigning and projections that it had emerged as the state’s principal challenger. The slide deepened in the 2024 general election, when its tally slipped to 12 seats, dulling the momentum of its earlier surge.
Now, with central ministers and top strategists making frequent forays into the state, the BJP is mounting an all-out push to reclaim lost ground and finally breach Bengal’s citadel of power. At the forefront of its attack is Suvendu Adhikari — once a Trinamool insider, now one of the fiercest critics of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — who has repeatedly rallied supporters with calls for sweeping political change.
Taken together, the renewed mobilisation reflects what many observers see as the party’s most determined bid yet to topple the incumbent regime and script a first-ever ascent to power in Bengal.
