Internal squabble within Bengal BJP rises after assembly election rout

The BJP’s West Bengal unit is facing a massive organisational crisis following the assembly elections, in which the ruling Trinamool Congress defied skeptics to retain power comfortably.Shattered dreams of government formation in the state, large-scale post-poll violence and tension between old school BJP leaders seeped in RSS ideology and new arrivals have escalated squabbles within the party.A week ago, BJP’s state president Dilip Ghosh was publicly heckled by party workers in Chunchura. Ghosh had gone to Chunchura in Hooghly district to attend the party’s organisational meeting. While the meeting was underway, local workers agitated before the party office and raised slogans against Ghosh.

It emerged that a dissident leader, who did not get a ticket in the assembly polls, was behind the protest, said people aware of the matter. When Ghosh was leaving the meeting, some workers went up to him and complained that they were beaten up. “The district president and leadership didn’t care to listen to us in time of our crisis,” said one of the workers, who did not wish to be identified.Meanwhile, a number of Trinamool-turned-BJP workers and leaders are tracing their way back to their former party. After turncoat leaders such as Sonali Guha and Sarala Murmu openly expressed their desire to return, an exodus began even at the grassroots level.Apart from Guha and Murmu, former Domjur MLA Rajib Banerjee, who joined BJP before polls, did not attend the recent party meeting in Kolkata two days ago and wrote a Facebook post that the BJP should now stop being critical of the Trinamool government which won a majority. Another turncoat BJP leader, Prabiir Ghoshal, expressed his sadness, claiming no one from the BJP leadership contacted him after his mother’s death recently. Ghosh later got in touch with Ghoshal to appease him.According to insiders, a section of senior BJP leaders are unhappy with Suvendu Adhikari, who has been given more importance and who went to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.