On road to Bengal polls, all eyes on PM Modi's Visva-Bharati University centenary address

Ahead of West Bengal polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the centenary celebrations of Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and the Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal will also be present during the ceremony. Founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1921, Visva-Bharati is one of the oldest central universities in the country. 

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PM Modi to address celebrations at Visa-Bharati University

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Taking to Twitter, PM Modi wrote that he is looking forward to addressing the centenary celebrations of the iconic Visva-Bharati University, which he described as one among the premium centres of learning and is closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore. His address at Visva-Bharati University comes just days after he addressed the centenary celebrations of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

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Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate, is one of the most revered icons in Indian history and hailed from Bengal, a state which will go to the assembly polls in the first half of the next year. In May 1951, Visva-Bharati was declared a Central University and an "institution of national importance" by an Act of Parliament, the PMO noted. The university followed the pedagogy devised by Tagore, though gradually it evolved in the format in which modern universities developed elsewhere. Narendra Modi, as the Prime Minister, is the ex-officio Chancellor of the university.

West Bengal polls 

The West Bengal assembly with 294 seats will go to polls in April-May 2021, Trinamool holds 222 seats. However, BJP has made major inroads in the state in the Lok Sabha elections winning 18 seats and establishing itself as the major opposition force in the state. Recently TMC trumped BJP in all 3 bypolls but the BJP is using its booth-level strategy, has regularly dispatched its top leaders including Amit Shah and JP Nadda in the state for winning the upcoming elections. The address at Visva-Bharati is is likely to entail the Prime Minister's official entry into the poll fray, in a state that the BJP regards as its final frontier and against a tremendously strong and popular regional power in Mamata Banerjee.

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(With PTI inputs)