NEW DELHI: Succeeding in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly election is emerging as the most consequential organisational test for newly appointed BJP working president Nitin Nabin, with party leaders privately acknowledging that the outcome will weigh heavily on how his leadership is assessed within the organisation, especially among those senior leaders who believe that he is not the correct choice. West Bengal remains one of the most difficult electoral terrain for the BJP. It has never formed a government there, despite its best efforts in the last one decade.
Current internal assessments within the party, as well as independent political evaluations, indicate that the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress retains a clear advantage. Senior leaders concede that reversing this assessment would require near flawless execution in candidate selection and campaign management.
In the previous Assembly election, the BJP won 77 seats, a sharp rise of 74 seats over its earlier tally. However, officials involved in post-poll reviews say the performance fell well short of internal expectations. According to those tracking the process, ticket distribution emerged as a major point of contention, with winnability often diluted by factors such as financial considerations, personal recommendations, and factional pressures.
The internal backlash following the results was unusually intense. Top senior leaders associated with the ticketing process, including the Madhya Pradesh based Kailash Vijayvargiya, avoided returning to the state after the results were announced, amid anger from party workers who accused them of sidelining viable candidates. Vijayvargiya and other relevant leaders have not visited the state even four years after the results were declared. Within the party, the episode continues to be cited as an example of how organisational decisions, that were given to few men, directly and adversely impacted electoral outcomes.
Officials say similar dynamics are again visible even as the elections are less than four months away. Individuals viewed as weak contenders are attempting to secure tickets through hospitality, gifts, and proximity to influential leaders. Party functionaries warn that unless these pressures are checked, the party risks repeating the structural errors of the last election.
Campaign financing has also featured in internal discussions. The BJP provides substantial financial assistance to candidates once tickets are finalised. Internal assessments from the previous polls indicated that a larger number of candidates spent only about 20 to 30 percent of the allotted funds on campaigning, retaining the remainder for future safety.
The present election in-charge Sunil Bansal, who has been spending extended periods in West Bengal since August 2022, is expected to be working against the backdrop of lessons drawn from the previous election cycle and from his predecessor’s experience in the state. Party officials say his brief is to ensure that ticket distribution is driven solely by winnability with no weight given to money, recommendations, or other considerations that diluted the party’s prospects in the last polls. Whether he is strictly following this brief remains to be seen.
Sources said that with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah giving a free hand to Nabin, the results of West Bengal will play a key role in deciding the composition of the new national team of BJP that the 45 years old will be forming in the coming months. For Nabin, the challenge lies in acting within a compressed timeframe while drawing on lessons from the BJP’s own recent experience in the state. Whether stricter enforcement of winnability criteria can alter the prevailing assessment in West Bengal remains uncertain, but the outcome is expected to shape both the party’s electoral prospects in the state and Nabin’s standing within the BJP’s leadership structure.
As of today, West Bengal is less about defeating Mamata Banerjee and more about whether Nitin Nabin can demonstrate organisational control, enforce merit-based ticketing, and break entrenched internal distortions that have been visible during his predecessor’s time.
