The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) top bosses have called a meeting with their leaders from all districts from West Bengal on Saturday in Kolkata following the disgruntlement among the party workers in several parts of the state. Many workers are angry and upset about the choice of candidates in the first list released from New Delhi on Thursday.
Top party leaders Kailash Vijayvargiya, Shiv Prakash and Arvind Menon are scheduled to be present at the meeting, to discuss the details of campaigning that district leaders are supposed to follow in the run up to the polls. Several other issues are also to be discussed, especially making the workers understand the need to back the party leaders nominated as candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. Since the announcement of the candidate list, several incidents have been embarrassing for the party – reflecting the lack of unity. The top bosses will attempt to resolve these issues.
Of the 42 constituencies in Bengal, the BJP has announced the names of its candidates from 28 seats.
Angered by his exclusion in this list, vice-president of the state BJP Rajkamal Pathak sent his resignation letter to the BJP state president Dilip Ghosh on Friday. He was hoping to be fielded either from Serampore or Hooghly, but his name wasn’t there. Pathak’s resignation from the post has caused huge embarrassment to the party.
Matters were much worse in Cooch Behar where BJP workers began protesting against the nomination of Nishith Pramanik – a former Trinamool member – as the candidate from Cooch Behar. They took to the streets and even vandalised their own party office in protest. Party workers alleged that the BJP leadership in Delhi had taken bribe to nominate the expelled Trinamool Congress leader who had been thrown out of his own party on corruption charges.
Meanwhile, a poster has emerged on social media showing Basirhat BJP workers are not keen that Sayantan Basu – general secretary of the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party – should be their candidate as he is an “outsider”. However, the party has denied such a poster existed at all in reality. They alleged that the Trinamool Congress was trying to malign the BJP and had created such a poster on social media. The Trinamool Congress has denied the allegations.
