Mukul Roy hasn’t found any place either in the state panel or at the national level.
New Delhi: With an eye on the May 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP has reconstituted its state unit and has brought in dozens of young and new faces who have made their way up in politics and made their name by working on the ground rather than being parachuted from Delhi or being born in a political family.
The new team is also a testament to the growing clout of state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who has emerged as the face of the BJP-led resistance against the Mamata Banerjee government in the state. No state party leader, who is on the wrong side of Ghosh or is seen as “sympathetic to the TMC cause for monetary or other reasons” could find a place in the new committee. The BJP leadership is evidently pleased with the working style of Ghosh and has given him a free hand to manage the party’s affairs in the run-up to the May 2021 elections. Senior BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was once very close to Mamata Banerjee before joining BJP, has not found any place in the state committee nor has he found any position at the national level. The revamped state unit of the BJP has seen the introduction of several leaders who had joined the BJP from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and had won from their respective constituencies. This was done, as per party leaders, to give an unambiguous message to the TMC that the “BJP believed in keeping its promise of awarding and recognising hardworking workers who join the BJP from other parties,” a national vice president told The Sunday Guardian while commenting on the new team. According to him, many other TMC MLAs and councillors were in touch with the state leaders of West Bengal seeking a position in the BJP before the next year’s Assembly election.
The newly constituted state unit has 12 vice presidents which include Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh and Bankura MP Dr Subash Sarkar.
Arjun Singh, a “strong-man”, had joined the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha, leaving his former party, the TMC. He is considered to be a fierce critic of the Mamata Banerjee government. Singh is often seen taking on the TMC-led government in West Bengal and fighting it out on the streets, many times literally. Sources in the BJP have said that Singh will be a vital cog in the party’s scheme of things in the run-up to the Assembly elections as he has a huge and loyal following on the ground. Singh is also a very popular leader in Bengal among the youth and the Hindi-speaking population of Bengal.
Bankura MP Dr Shubash Sarkar, who is seen as someone who is very close to the RSS leadership, has also been made a vice president in the new unit. Sarkar is being considered as one of the frontrunners for the post of chief ministerial candidate. A quiet man, Sarkar has impressed those who matter at the decision-taking position by his habit of working silently and effectively.
Other vice presidents chosen to lead the party to elections next year include former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh and BJP’s Marwari face in Kolkata, Ritesh Tiwari, among others. The party has also appointed Khagen Murmu, MP from Malda (North), as the Scheduled Tribe Morcha head of the party. Murmu was earlier in the CPM, before joining the BJP in 2019. He is seen as someone who has a very strong support base in Malda. The party believes that Murmu would be able to organise the booths in Malda in the upcoming Assembly election in the state.
The BJP has changed its Mahila Morcha president in Bengal. Locket Chatterjee, who had been heading the Mahila Morcha for the last three years, had been given a new responsibility as state BJP’s General Secretary, while TMC turncoat and a Kolkata-based fashion designer Agnimitra Paul has been given the charge to lead the Mahila Morcha of the BJP.
Locket Chatterjee, whose new appointment is seen as a promotion of sorts, is also one of the leaders in Bengal who has been seen taking on the TMC-ruled Bengal government fiercely on every issue. Sources in the BJP have also hinted that Locket Chatterjee could also be one of the potential chief ministerial faces of the party in the run up to the 2021 Assembly polls in the state. Former TMC leader Saumitra Khan, who was elected as an MP from Bishnupur, has been appointed as the new president of the BJP’s youth wing in Bengal. Khan is also a critic of the Mamata Banerjee administration in Bengal and has a stronghold in this Lok Sabha constituency. Saumitra Khan was the one who was not even allowed by the West Bengal administration to campaign and enter in his constituency during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and despite that, Khan had won the seat with a huge margin. The state unit under president Dilip Ghosh has also given place to some turncoat MLAs. Sabyasachi Dutta, MLA from the New Town-Rajarhat area in Kolkata, who was the former TMC mayor of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation has been appointed as the new secretary of the BJP in Bengal. He was once very close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Similarly, Bagdah MLA Dulal Bar has been appointed as the MLA of Scheduled Caste Morcha.
The rejig of the BJP’s state committee has come days after the BJP launched its campaign theme for the Assembly polls, “Aar Noi Mamata” (No more Mamata), to take on the Mamata Banerjee government. The BJP, which has grown manifold in the state in the last five years, is hoping to dethrone the Mamata Banerjee government in the upcoming state Assembly elections next year and keeping this in mind, the new state committee has been formed. “The new state committee has been made keeping in view the state elections. All the members who have been chosen to lead the party to victory in the polls are leaders with a strong presence on the ground,” a top Kolkata-based BJP functionary said.