Bengal BJP headed for major shuffle after Diwali

Kolkata:

Bengal BJP

president Sukanta Majumdar has got his hands full. He has to rejig the party organization, re-energize the ranks running out of steam after the assembly poll results and retain the status of the main opposition in the assembly bypolls and the upcoming civic polls. Majumdar will start touring the districts from the third week of October.

The BJP brass in Delhi is also mulling a shuffle in the organization after Diwali.

Majumdar has taken over the reins when Bengal BJP is faced with a reverse flow to Trinamool Congress, unlike before the assembly polls. The party’s assembly strength has gone down from 77 to 70 in the last five months. Prominent faces like Mukul Roy, Babul Supriyo and Sabyasachi Dutta have left the party, while state office-bearers Locket Chatterjee and Bharati Ghosh are not in their usual form. State secretaries like Tanuja Chakraborty, Sarbari Mukherjee, Falguni Patra and Sanghamitra Chaudhuri are out of public memory.

Majumdar, as leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari told a meeting recently, has to handpick organizers who can form primary committees in the 77,000-odd booths ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Bengal BJP seniors can’t vouch for more than five Lok Sabha seats as of now. Jangalmahal, once a positive terrain for BJP, has also come under question except Purulia and parts of West Midnapore.

Majumdar has to deliver if he wants to arrest erosion at the grassroots. A fact-check shows that three of 12 vice-presidents and only one of the five general secretaries are from north Bengal where the party tasted success in the assembly polls. Desertions and reverses in Malda and the two Dinajpurs leave little scope of expectation for BJP.

BJP organizers can also name only a handful — young and veterans — capable of running the show at the state level. Former Union minister Debasree Chaudhuri, Adhikari, BJP Cooch Behar president Malati Rava Roy, Saumitra Khan and BJP Mahila Morcha president Agnimitra Paul are some of them.

BJP organizers with RSS background like Debojit Sarkar, Loknath Chattopadhyay and organizers such as Tushar Ghosh might get berths in the new state committee. Lawyer Priyanka Tibrewal, who took up the cause of post-poll violence victims in court and later fought the electoral battle against Mamata Banerjee from Bhowanipore, has a chance in the new committee.