Today in Politics: PM Modi back in Bengal, Congress likely to unveil poll promises for the youth

Five days after he tore into the Trinamool Congress (TMC)-led West Bengal government over the Sandeshkhali row, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be back in West Bengal on Wednesday to address a rally in Barasat in North 24 Parganas and is expected to again take on the Mamata Banerjee-led party over the issue.

Last month, protests erupted in Sandeskhali after women accused former TMC strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, who was expelled by the ruling party after his arrest, and other leaders of the party of land grab and sexual abuse.

While in the state, Modi is scheduled to inaugurate the country’s first underwater Metro section for Kolkata Metro’s East-West corridor, a part of which runs under the Hooghly river. The PM will also inaugurate two other sections of the Kolkata Metro and virtually flag off the priority corridor of the Agra Metro, a stretch of the Pune Metro, and a section of the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor. The Kolkata projects cost Rs 15,400 crore, officials said. Modi will also travel to Bihar and inaugurate and lay the foundation stones of multiple development projects in Bettiah.

In context: With the stakes high in the key battleground state, the Sandeshkhali incident has opened up an opportunity for the BJP to hit the TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee where it hurts the most by making a dent in the party’s women support base, writes Atri Mitra. In 2021, the two Ms – Muslims and Mahila (women) – helped the TMC thwart the BJP’s attempt at capturing power in the state. The party can ill afford an erosion in either as it looks to stop the BJP in its tracks and prevent it from repeating the 2019 Lok Sabha performance when it won a record 18 parliamentary seats from the