‘Bengal BJP should be ready to accept people from other parties’.
NEW DELHI: The three-day training programme of Bengal BJP leaders that concluded on Wednesday this week focused on how the party needs to strengthen its booths in every constituency and how the party needs to help bring out all BJP workers who have gone “underground” after the 2021 Vidhan Sabha elections in the state. The training programme was conducted keeping in mind the upcoming Panchayat elections in the state next year and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Sources present in the meeting told The Sunday Guardian that the senior leadership of the party held a series of discussions with all the state office bearers, MLAs and MPs on how to involve each and every member of the BJP in the state in its day-to-day functioning and also bring in more and more members into the BJP’s fold from other political parties. Sources from the meeting also said that BJP’s newly appointed in-charge for Bengal, Sunil Bansal, has categorically mentioned in his speech to Bengal BJP leaders that the BJP leaders in Bengal have to learn to have a “big heart” to welcome everyone into the party fold with “open arms”.
“Sunil Bansalji said that the party (Bengal BJP) should be ready to accept people from other parties and also assign them with key roles in the organisation. The Bengal unit must be able to trust others and the differences between the old and new guard within the BJP must end to ensure that the party becomes victorious in the coming future,” the source quoted above said.
Sunil Bansal, BJP’s national general secretary, was appointed as the in-charge for Bengal BJP in July this year and since then, this was his maiden visit to Bengal where he attended the in-house residential training programme of all the Bengal BJP leaders in Kolkata’s Vedic Village resort.
Apart from Bansal, BJP General Secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh was also present in the meeting and he has given the Bengal BJP unit the task of booth strengthening by the end of this year. According to sources, he has tasked the state and district presidents to generate a report on booth strengthening for the party by the end of this year, before the BJP enters into election mode next year.
Santosh was also critical of the Bengal BJP leaders for not being able to manage and curtail infighting within the party that has been hurting the party’s electoral prospects in the state. Santosh has also reportedly asked the BJP leaders to take on the Mamata Banerjee government on the streets of Bengal and has also asked them to act like a strong opposition party.
Apart from this, the MLAs have been asked to make themselves available for the public every day so that the problems of the people are heard by them and taken up with the government. The Bengal BJP has also been asked to make the “Nabbana Chalo” (State Secretariat Chalo) abhiyaan successful. The “Nabbano Chalo” abhiyaan will be held on 13 September to gherao the TMC government over the various corruption charges its ministers and leaders are facing in Bengal.