With eye on West Bengal polls, BJP effects changes

“We have revamped the organisation with an eye on 2016 assembly polls. We have chalked out a plan to achieve our goal. The people are with us and it was proved in recent law violation programmes across the state,” West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who assumed the post last month, told PTI. 

Within weeks of taking over, Ghosh, a RSS pracharak, cracked the whip and removed several office bearers and district presidents. 

The change appears to have infused a new lease of energy with BJP cadres hitting the streets in various parts of the state as part of law-violation programme. According to party insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity, Ghosh has full support of RSS. 

Actress-turned-politician Roopa Ganguly, who reportedly shared a strained relationship with former BJP state president Rahul Sinha, was made the chief of state BJP women’s wing.  With the new leadership cracking the whip, several top leaders of state BJP like general secretary Ashim Sarkar and media convenor Ritesh Tiwari have lost their berths. 

Others to go include the party’s youth wing president Amitava Roy and several former bureaucrats who joined BJP before the 2014 general election did not find any berth in the state unit. Although Tiwari retained his seat as secretary, Roy was made a new secretary. 

The changes were made in the backdrop of growing dissent in the rank and file over outsiders, who had joined the party in Bengal after 2014 being given important positions at the expense of old-timers.  After a good show in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when it garnered about 18 per cent vote share, BJP appears to have lost its steam in Bengal politics within a year due to lack of leadership, infighting and its alleged understanding with the ruling Trinamool Congress. 

BJP’s fortune started to slip with the party’s defeat in the by-poll to Bongaon Lok Sabha in February 2015. TMC retained the seat and Left Front managed to secure the second position. 

CPM and TMC have mocked the changes in BJP and said it would not bear any results.