Kolkata: When federal Home Minister and former national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sat down to break bread at the humble courtyard of a farmer’s minimalist thatched-roof house in Midnapore, it was much more than a mere luncheon break in the BJP heavyweight’s two-day tour of West Bengal.
While it was undoubtedly high on optics, with the irony not lost on the ongoing farmers’ agitation against the federal government on the outskirts of Delhi, Shah’s frugal vegetarian lunch menu comprising rice, ‘roti’ dal, ‘lauki’, cauliflower, poppadum and sweets was in stark contrast to the ‘sumptuous platter’ of sorts that was already being laid out at the Midnapore College Ground, barely 10km away from Shah’s lunch venue, where more than a dozen representatives from across the socio-political spectrum in Bengal, including from the state’s minority community, were all set to officially switch their allegiance to the saffron brigade.
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