While the pictures shared by Bharatiya Janata Party may claim that there was a huge crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Kolkata on Wednesday, local media reports claim that the rally venue, the iconic Brigade Ground, was half empty.
Ei Samay reported that the crowd could be seen beneath the erected hangars only, and that the rest of the Brigade ground was empty.
People noted that the turnout was nothing compared to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s rally at the same venue.
Again a great crowd for a still growing BJP but to give non-Kolkatawalahs a sense of a proper Brigade-mass-off-humanity understanding, the first picture is the Left’s brigade rally in Feb. Second is Modi today. pic.twitter.com/AGHL5fMde8
— Shoaib Daniyal (@ShoaibDaniyal) April 3, 2019
The Brigade ground was packed during the Left party’s rally in February.
The report added that around 3,000 people had left the rally even before the PM arrived. Resentment at the rally was aggravated by the fact that no arrangement for food or water was made at the venue.
Around 2,500 BJP workers had been brought in from Birbhum district for the event. However, the report says that the group was not even provided water by the organisers. The poor organisation made around 3,000 people leave before Modi’s arrival, reported Ei Samay.
Previously, Modi’s campaign rally at Wardha in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut had also reportedly witnessed a low turnout.
Fearing another embarrassment, this time in West Bengal, the BJP had hired four trains at a cost of Rs 53 lakh to ferry people from four districts to Kolkata.
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