Shaking It Up

With the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in mind, the BJP plans to overhaul its West Bengal unit

- Rabi Banerjee

Last month, Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, who heads the BJP’s central election panel, named former MLA Manju Bose as the party’s candidate for the byelection to the Noapara assembly seat, scheduled to be held on January 29. Bose, who had earlier won from Noapara on a Trinamool Congress ticket, however, promptly announced that she was not even a member of the BJP. She had fallen out of favour with Trinamool supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after blaming some Trinamool workers for the murder of her husband. But Bose said she was still a loyal Trinamool member.

The blame for the goof-up fell on Mukul Roy, Mamata’s once trusted lieutenant who recently joined the BJP. Roy admitted that he had introduced Bose to Kailash Vijayvargiya, the BJP general secretary in charge of West Bengal. “Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvargiyaji took the decision,” said West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh. “I have never met Bose. I was not in the loop.”

But, the slip showed that Ghosh did not really enjoy the confidence of the central leadership of the BJP. During his visit to West Bengal last September, Shah had asked the state unit to set up committees in all 77,000 booths. He wanted panna pramukhs (booth in-charges) who could bring in at least 500 votes per booth. But Ghosh failed to set up committees in even half of the total number of booths. It is one of the reasons why Shah is giving more prominence to Roy, who had helped establish the Trinamool’s dominance across booths in West Bengal. However, Roy could do so only after the Trinamool came to power in 2011. Till then, he had to work with the Congress and other smaller parties. The BJP, on the other hand, is fighting a lonely battle.