AFTER HE WAS REAPPOINTED as president of the BJP’s West Bengal unit in January this year, Dilip Ghosh had a closed-door meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was the party’s national president then. Ghosh told Shah that he needed to pick his own team to improve the party’s prospects in the state before the assembly polls in 2021.
Shah sought a wish list. Ghosh sent one, but it was so startling that a party general secretary in Delhi called him and requested a meeting when he came to Delhi for the budget session of Parliament later that month. Ghosh is the MP from Medinipur.
In the meeting, the secretary told Ghosh that the shake-up he proposed was so drastic that the national leadership would struggle to contain resentment in the party. Ghosh said if the BJP wanted to win Bengal, it should have leaders “who were connected to the ground” (trinamool, in Bengali).
The secretary said the list would have to wait, as Shah was preparing to pass the mantle of party president to working president J.P. Nadda. Once Nadda took charge, in late January, he began assessing Ghosh’s plan. Nadda spoke to Kailash Vijayvargiva, Shiv Prakash and Arvind Menon (all general secretaries in charge of Bengal) and Mukul Roy, who had quit the ruling Trinamool Congress to join the BJP in 2017.
Three months later, Ghosh was given the green light. He was asked to constitute a state committee that had Trinamool defectors in key positions and fewer RSS emissaries. Several leaders who had won the Lok Sabha elections last year were brought in, and “non-performers” shown the door.
Among the non-performers were party vice president and Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew Chandra Bose; Rajya Sabha members Roopa Ganguly and George Baker, who was also the BJP’s Anglo-Indian face; RSS ideologue Shamik Bhattacharya; and firebrand leader Badsha Alam, who allegedly attacked Mamata Banerjee in the 1990s, when he was in the CPI(M).
Ghosh appointed former Trinamool MP Saumitra Khan as president of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha, replacing RSS nominee Debjit Sarkar. Khan had quit the Trinamool two years ago. He was charged with murder and barred from entering Bishnupur after the BJP fielded him for the Lok Sabha seat.
Khan campaigned over the phone, while his wife, Sujata, and partymen hit the trail. He ended up scoring a surprise victory. As head of the Yuva Morcha, he is expected to replicate the key role the youth wing played in helping the BJP come to power in Tripura, Assam and Manipur.
The party’s Scheduled Caste Morcha, too, is now headed by a former dalit leader of Trinamool—Dulal Bar, who represents Bagdah in the assembly. Khagen Murmu, a former left leader who represents Malda North in the Lok Sabha, has been named head of the BJP’s Scheduled Tribe Morcha.
Fashion designer Agnimitra Paul, who had joined the BJP last year, has been named chief of the party’s women wing. She replaced Locket Chatterjee, MP, former actor who has long been a vocal critic of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Chatterjee is now one of the five general secretaries of the BJP’s state unit. The others include Jyotirmoy Mahato, who had won from Purulia last year; Sabyasachi Dutta, once a close confidant of Mamata; and Sayantan Basu, who had lost to Nusrat Jahan of the Trinamool last year but polarised the Muslim-majority Basirhat.
There are three new vice presidents: Arjun Singh, Barackpore MP and former Trinamool leader; Bharati Ghosh, who was key IPS officer under Mamata; and Mafuja Khatun, former CPI(M) leader who gave a tough fight to the victorious Trinamool candidate in Jangipur and polled more votes than Abhijit Mukherjee, incumbent MP and former president Pranab Mukherjee’s son. Jangipur is a Muslim-dominated seat where the BJP had no hopes.
Ghosh said the new state committee was composed of active and capable leaders. “We all wanted performers who would act as an election team,” he said. “Our central leadership told us not to include people who were not active.”
Though the team is led by Ghosh, most new appointees are Mukul Roy’s followers. By increasing Roy’s clout, the BJP seems to be following its successful strategy in the northeast. It was Congress defector Himanta Biswa Sarma who helped the party’s rise to power in Assam and other northeastern states.
Elevated roles: Fashion designer Agnimitra Paul has replaced former star Locket Chatterjee (left) as the chief of the BJP’s women wing; Chatterjee has been made general secretary | Salil Bera
Arvind Menon said the BJP would fight the assembly polls next year under the new team. “The party sat down and made the best choice,” he told THE WEEK. “This is the best team available and it will click next year.”
An RSS hand, Menon had helped the BJP win seven of eight seats in north Bengal after he was put in charge of the region. He said Mamata’s popularity was at an all-time low because of her inept handling of Covid-19 and cyclone crises. But he praised the efforts of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government in his home state, Kerala.
“We are politically very much against the communists, who are ruling Kerala,” said Menon. “But we have no complaint against them as far as the Covid-19 handling is concerned. Rajasthan (which is ruled by the Congress) also did well by having a coordinated plan with the Union government. But in Bengal, the state government did not even think of poor people and played dirty politics.”
He said the BJP would tell voters about the Trinamool government’s “lackadaisical attitude” in tackling the pandemic in the state. “What is the point of hiding numbers? Why did she not welcome migrant labourers [returning to the state]? Why did people die at home without getting treatment? Shouldn’t we tell all this to the people?” asked Menon.
The BJP’s major worry is its poor presence in parts of south Bengal. In Howrah, South 24 Parganas, East Midnapore and Kolkata districts, the BJP had drawn a blank in the Lok Sabha polls. “This region is a major headache for us,” said vice president Biswapriya Roy Chowdhury. “But the situation has improved a lot. In one year, we will overcome the hurdles in this region.”
Chandra Bose’s removal from the state committee could cost the BJP dear. If Bose is forced to become a BJP rebel, Mamata could project it as a slight to his illustrious family. Trinamool has had two MPs from the family—Krishna Bose, wife of Subhas Bose’s nephew Sisir Bose; and her son, historian Sugato Bose. A distant member of the family, Amit Mitra, is Mamata’s finance minister.
Menon said Chandra Bose would be “accommodated” elsewhere. “I have spoken to him,” he said. “His advice and active participation would help the party. One must understand that not everyone can be made vice president or general secretary.”
With Covid-19 having restricted political activities in the state, experts say the BJP is more affected than the ruling party. In the Lok Sabha elections last year, there was a 6 per cent difference in the vote shares of the Trinamool and the BJP. When the pandemic struck, the BJP had been taking measures to bridge the gap well before the assembly polls.
Menon, however, said Covid-19 had only made Mamata more unpopular. In April, she roped in poll strategist Prashant Kishor to help manage her image in the run-up to the polls. “Mark my words: The worst of this would be the advice she will get from Kishor,” said Menon. “It will boomerang on her, as her own partymen would get angry and join us.”