Move is meant to rejuvenate party in state and prepare it for 2024 Lok Sabha polls.Move is meant to rejuvenate party in state and prepare it for 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
New Delhi: In a bid to rejuvenate the West Bengal BJP and prepare the party cadre for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP will be holding a three-day training programme for all its senior leaders in Bengal.
The training programme, which will be held from 29 August till 31 August in South Kolkata’s posh Vedic Village Resort and Spa, will be an all-residential programme where Bengal BJP leaders will be trained by senior leaders from Delhi and other parts of the state. Sources also confirmed that senior leaders of the BJP like the National General Secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh, Smriti Irani and National BJP president J.P. Nadda could attend the programme and address the Bengal BJP leaders on how to prepare itself for the Lok Sabha elections.
However, sources also said that, although B.L. Santosh would be present physically for the training programme in Kolkata and would be staying with the BJP leaders in the Vedic Village resort and Spa, Smriti Irani and J.P. Nadda is most likely to prep the Bengal BJP leaders through video conferencing from Delhi.
Apart from these leaders, the newly appointed BJP’s National general secretary and in-charge for Bengal, Sunil Bansal, would also be present physically in the training programme. This would be Bansal’s maiden visit to West Bengal after he was appointed the in-charge for Bengal earlier this month.
The Sunday Guardian has also confirmed from the Vedic Village Resort and Spa about the meeting and sources from the resort told this newspaper that all the 200 rooms in the resort have been completely booked by the client (BJP) for three days and no outside guests are being allowed between 29 August and 31 August.
With regards to this training programme, the West Bengal BJP has sent out a letter to all its leaders who would be attending the three-day event.
According to the letter, which has been accessed by The Sunday Guardian, all the West Bengal BJP MLAs, MPs, state president and all other state executive committee members, including State General Secretaries, Vice Presidents and spokespersons, have been invited to the programme.
Apart from this, all the 42 district presidents of all organisational districts of the BJP, have also been asked to make themselves available for the training programme. All district in-charges, Morcha presidents and cell convenors and in-charges have also been invited for the same.
The official letter sent out to all BJP leaders on 24 August says that all the leaders attending the programme are required to bring only essential and daily use items with them for the residential programme, while food and lodging of all the leaders would be taken care of by the party. The letter also says that all the participants—read Bengal BJP leaders—would require to mandatorily read three books—The biography of Dr Shayamaprasad Mukherjee, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Individual Human Philosophy—before they attend the training programme in Kolkata.
The letter also mentions that only invited BJP leaders would be allowed inside the venue and “all leaders are requested to leave their security personnel and their respective personal staff, including their personal assistants, outside the entry gate of the venue and they would be only allowed to pick up their respective leaders on 31 August after the end of the programme,” the letter reads.
Sources in the BJP aware of this development said that the central BJP is “worried” with the situation in Bengal and the state of affairs with the Bengal BJP and, therefore, the Central leadership of the BJP felt it prudent to hold a training programme in Bengal with all its senior leaders to prepare the party in the state to take on the Trinamool Congress government ahead of the Panchayat elections next year and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time scored a massive number in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections where the party won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state, but just two years later, the Bharatiya Janata Party was unable to keep up with this performance and lost the Vidhan Sabha elections in 2021.
The party is hoping to repeat the tally in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and, party sources said, that the training programme would act as the “beginner” lesson for all its leaders in the state.