The state BJP has decided to launch a mass contact campaign from Durga Puja onwards and also seek public support against the “repressive measures” of the Mamata Banerjee-led government.

It has been learnt that the party’s national president has asked the state BJP leaders to launch mass contact programmes and also a campaign against the Trinamul government’s “indiscriminate” arrest of party leaders and activists on “trumped up” charges.

The party’s national president has also asked the state party leaders to intensify the mass contact programme from Durga Puja onwards. Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Bengal, has often been used by political parties to reach out to the masses. The saffron party’s national president is likely to inaugurate Durga Puja festivities in chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s locality this year, party sources said.

ld with the MPs of the BJP at the Library Hall of Parliament from Saturday, where Mr Shah met with the MPs of the Bengal and asked them to launch mass contact programme from Durga Puja.

The party will also send national leaders to a state conference, which will be held at Durgapur, where national party leaders will join the programme and prepare a strategy to intensify the movement against the state government, especially against the arrests of the BJP workers by accusing them in false cases. The BJP had last year set up nearly 3,000 stalls outside puja pandals across the state where it displayed books propagating the party’s ideology.

A BJP source said that more than 100 puja committees are in touch with the saffron party but the BJP leaders are now refusing to disclose the names of the committees, fearing that TMC will try to win them over.

As the parties vie to use Durgas Pujas to spread their influence, it has sometimes resulted in violence. A few days ago, a meeting of a Puja committee in south Kolkata attended by BJP’s state secretary Sayantan Basu along with other BJP leaders and workers was interrupted by the TMC activists. Some people got injured when a clash broke out between the two sides. BJP sources said that the TMC has regained control of that Durga Puja committee.