Bengal BJP holds meet as dissent begins to spiral

Kolkata: Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar on Monday huddled in a meeting with party seniors to discuss ways for a facelift of the party’s image in Bengal, days ahead of BJP president J P Nadda and party senior B L Santhosh’s visit to take stock of the organisation.
At the party’s Hastings office, Majumdar had talks with Yuva Morcha president Indranil Khan and later with Dilip Ghosh, Suvendu Adhikari and Arjun Singh as party dissent spread from Murshidabad and Nadia to Jalpaiguri.BJP sources said the party would be taking up a host of programmes to assert its main opposition role when it had been facing a series of reversals in elections after the 2021 Bengal polls.
Majumdar and leader of opposition Adhikari would be heading to Deocha Pachami when the state-sponsored Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) begins in Kolkata on Wednesday. The state government had a meeting with prospective land-givers in an attempt to avert any untoward development in the project area during BGBS.
Bengal BJP general secretary (organisation) Amitava Chakraborty, meanwhile, left for Delhi to brief party brass about the disconcerting developments in the state unit. He is likely to submit a report on the Asansol and Ballygunge bypoll debacle to Nadda and Santhosh on Wednesday.
On Monday, former BJP Jalpaiguri district president Alok Chakaborty targeted the “inexperienced and inefficient leaders” at the district level. The same day, Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh left BJP observers’ WhatsApp group.
Sensing the brewing discontent, Bengal BJP on Monday withdrew the list of mandal presidents in Hooghly announced earlier. “There are a few names that might get changed, but there is no controversy around that,” said Hooghly district president Tushar Majumdar.
BJP national secretary Anupam Hazra took to social media. “If we don’t discuss the shortcomings, how can we strengthen the base?” he posted. State BJP vice-president Saumitra Khan, however, hoped things would calm down after party brass intervened. BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh said: “We need to find out why a section of committed BJP workers who took the party to this level in Bengal has become inactive.”