Questions are being asked in the BJP about the way some senior Bengal leaders picked candidates and managed the electioneering, after two junior Union ministers and a former state president lost and the party won six seats fewer than 2019.

A day after the BJP ended up with only 12 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, several state unit leaders said the outcome had exposed the deficiencies of the current party organisation, headed by state president Sukanta Majumdar.

They drew comparisons with the tenure of Dilip Ghosh, under whom the party had bagged Midnapore, Bardhaman-Durgapur, Bankura, Jhargram, Cooch Behar, Hooghly, Barrackpore and Asansol in 2019. The party lost all these eight seats this time.

It, however, won two new seats, Tamluk and Kanthi, the backyard of the leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari.

While the defeats of junior Union education minister Subhas Sarkar from Bankura and junior home minister Nisith Pramanik from Cooch Behar are weighing heavily on state BJP leaders’ minds, the hottest topic has been Ghosh’s loss.

The former state BJP president had been shifted from his constituency of Midnapore to Bardhaman-Durgapur, where Trinamool’s Kirti Azad defeated him by over 1.37 lakh votes.

BJP supporters celebrate the victory of Darjeeling candidate Raju Bista on Tuesday Sourced by The Telegraph

A BJP insider said the decision to shift Ghosh came at a heavy cost, with the party losing both seats. Asansol MLA Agnimitra Paul was parachuted to Midnapore but lost.

“Despite Dilipda winning Midnapore by around 89,000 votes in 2019, he was forced to go to Bardhaman-Durgapur where the party’s outgoing MP, S.S. Ahluwalia, had won by only 2,439 votes. Had he (Ghosh) been allowed to contest from Midnapore a second time, we would not have lost the seat,” a BJP leader in Calcutta said.

Many BJP insiders said that the national leaders had approved Ghosh’s transfer following a suggestion from Suvendu.

The outspoken Ghosh did not hide his discontent at his transfer from Midnapore when asked whether contesting from the new constituency led to his defeat.

“Kathibaji (needling) is part of politics. I have taken it (the shift) in the proper spirit.... Though I did my best this time, I didn’t get success. However, everything depends on the party’s policy,” Ghosh told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Ghosh said the party had failed to improve upon its 2019 performance because a section of its leaders did not work properly. “The leaders should examine the reasons for losing eight constituencies and ensure that the party’s growth continues,” he added.

The BJP’s vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was 40.6 per cent while Trinamool’s was 43.7 per cent. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP’s vote share dropped to 38.15 per cent as Mamata Banerjee stormed back to power for a third term by securing 48.02 per cent of the votes.

In the latest Lok Sabha polls, the BJP cornered 38.73 per cent votes, around 1.3 percentage points less than its 2019 haul, and the gap with Trinamool widened to around 7 percentage points.

Saumitra Khan, the BJP’s Bishnupur MP who won this election by just 5,567 votes, said the party cannot perform well if “incapable leaders” are placed at the top of the state unit.

“I think there was some understanding between our leaders and the TMC at the grassroots, district and state levels. Placing incapable leaders at the top can’t yield good results,” he told ABP Ananda.

“If the leaders in Delhi had not helped us properly, we would not have even won a single seat here. There are many GS (general secretaries) and other leaders.... Those who have never won an election can’t run it (election management) in the state.”

Khan praised Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for the ruling party’s stellar performance.

He claimed the BJP could have won at least four more seats had everything gone to plan.

A source said a large section of BJP leaders believe that poor candidate selection and overconfidence among some senior BJP leaders led to the disaster in Bengal.

A BJP insider said that infighting had resulted in the defeat of sitting MPs such as Locket Chatterjee in Hooghly and the two junior ministers. Although there were indications that this might happen, the state leadership did not take proper measures, he said.

“Everyone knew how Subhas Sarkar was gheraoed by party workers inside a party office last year. The anti-Subhas lobby in Bankura was active, but no senior leader sat with the disgruntled section before the election to resolve the issue,” a BJP leader in Bankura said. He said Locket was defeated because many long-time BJP workers did not work for her.

A BJP leader in Cooch Behar said Nisith lost because he gave priority to those who had defected from Trinamool and neglected the party faithful. “The leaders who managed the elections should have looked into these issues. Otherwise, there was no reason for eight sitting MPs to get defeated,” a BJP leader said.

A senior BJP leader said the reasons behind the defeats in those eight seats would be discussed at a meeting of senior leaders very soon.

Additional reporting by Main Uddin Chisti in Cooch Behar