BJP censures Dilip Ghosh, Bengal unit in disarray
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, May 31: In an unprecedented move, the BJP on Tuesday censured and cautioned party vice president and Lok Sabha MP Dilip Ghosh for “embarrassing central party leaders by speaking against the state unit”.
The BJP national general secretary Arun Singh, who is in-charge of the party’s national headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, on Tuesday issued a warning letter, full of strong words, to Ghosh, who had previously been the West Bengal chief of the saffron outfit.
“…there have been some avoidable instances when your statements or outbursts have anguished the state party leaders and have also caused embarrassment in the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata party. This was pointed out to you on several occasions by the party leadership in the fond hope that you will take note,” Singh wrote to Ghosh in the letter, which was immediately leaked to the media in a clear indication that the party has given up hope on the Lok Sabha MP.
Ironically, Ghosh is the BJP vice president while Singh is the national general secretary.
Ghosh is widely known to hold grievances after the BJP elevated Suvendu Adhikari, who had joined the saffron outfit ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections. Ghosh had previously been a legislator in the West Bengal Assembly. While Ghosh is an old timer in the BJP, Adhikari rose ranks in the saffron outfit quickly, after he defeated the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from the politically significant Nandigram Assembly constituency. Even while the BJP failed to capture power in West Bengal, Adhikari won the trust of the Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, who had micro-managed the West Bengal Assembly elections. Adhikari was appointed the leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
However, the BJP’s all out trust in a turncoat set off exodus of a number of party leaders, with the first to bolt the saffron stable being the former Union Minister Babul Supriyo, who resigned from his Lok Sabha membership to join the ruling Trinamool Congress. Another Lok Sabha MP and politically influential among the Hindi speaking constituency Arjun Singh too quit the BJP to join the TMC. In between, scores of the BJP MLAs have returned to the TMC.
The BJP’s fulsome support to Adhikari is, incidentally, in the hope that he would prove to be Himanta Biswa Sarma for the party in West Bengal, an ideological battleground that the saffron outfit and the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) have been keen to win on the lines of Tripura. Sarma in fact has helped the BJP cement its hold in Assam and also sweep across the North-eastern states.
However, the BJP’s bet on Adhikari has turned the heat on the party itself, as the turncoats who had won from its symbols are returning back to the TMC amid assessment that Mamata Banerjee would rule the state for a long time.
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