PURNEA/KISHANGANJ: Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived in Bihar on Wednesday for a three-day tour during which he is expected to attend several functions in the strategically located Seemanchal region, besides reviewing “demographic changes” in the area.
During the day, he chaired a meeting of the Land Ports Authority of India, a statutory body functioning under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing border infrastructure.
After Shah reached Purnea airport, he was welcomed by senior BJP leaders like Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and state party president Sanjay Saraogi.
Photographs of the occasion were shared on the X handle of the “Office of Amit Shah” with the remark”Union Home Minister Amit Shah reached Purnea for a three-day Bihar tour. He is likely to dedicate to the nation border outposts, lay foundation stones for projects of the Sashastra Seema Bal and attend meetings to review demographic change”.
From Purnea, Shah left in a helicopter for Kishanganj, the lone Bihar district with a Muslim majority population, where, according to the X post, he chaired a meeting of the Land Ports Authority of India.
Shah is also likely to hold a meeting with officials of the departments responsible for guarding the porous border with Nepal.
“The Union Home Minister is likely to brief officials on measures needed for putting a check on smuggling of drugs and circulation of counterfeit currency along the Indo-Nepal border,” DGP Vinay Kumar had said on Tuesday.
This is the first Bihar visit of Shah, widely regarded as the BJP’s principal strategist, who was last seen in the state capital in November, at the swearing-in ceremony of the new Nitish Kumar cabinet after the NDA’s landslide victory in assembly polls.
State minister and former Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal, who hails from Kishanganj, wrote on X: “It is a matter of pride for us that Amit Shah, the Chanakya of Indian politics, has visited our land”.
Shah is scheduled to visit the adjoining Araria district on Friday, where he will inspect the Indo-Nepal border, interact with officials of Sashastra Seema Bal, and also inaugurate a newly constructed “SSB Bhawan”.
He will wind up his Bihar tour on Friday with a visit to Purnea, from where he is scheduled to board his return flight.
“Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s tour of Seemanchal is a decisive step in the direction of strengthening national security. It is a strategically important region, by virtue of its proximity to Nepal and Bangladesh and presents challenges with regard to maintaining an intelligence network and demographic balance,” state BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said in a statement.
Located in the north-eastern extreme of Bihar, Seemanchal is a densely populated, but flood-prone and impoverished area, situated close to the border with Nepal and West Bengal.
The region, which has a high concentration of Muslim population, is also seen as a “gateway” to the strategically important Siliguri Corridor, colloquially referred to as the “Chicken’s Neck”. (PTI)