BJP Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar and Matua leader Shantanu Thakur have been included as junior members in the third Narendra Modi-led Union cabinet on Sunday.
Majumdar's new post all but confirmed that the party will get a new state unit chief. Many in the Bengal BJP have claimed that the central leadership was unhappy with Majumdar's performance as state party chief in the Lok Sabha polls.
“The party’s organisational structure does not allow anyone to hold two posts simultaneously. Hence, Sukantada’s entry into the Union cabinet makes it clear that the party’s state unit will be reshuffled with a new state president. The state unit is waiting to witness a reshuffle in the organisation now,” said a senior BJP leader in Calcutta.
By Sunday afternoon, it was clear that besides Majumdar, BJP’s Bongaon MP Shantanu Thakur, who represents the Matua community, is the second person from Bengal to occupy a place in the cabinet. Both Majumdar and Thakur will be ministers of state. Thakur had been the junior Union shipping minister in the previous government.
“Both I and Shantanu Thakur will be ministers of state. However, berths have not been allocated for us so far. We will be informed later on,” Majumdar told journalists in New Delhi on Sunday.
In the last government, Bengal had five junior Union ministers of state. Among them, only Thakur won this time. Nisith Pramanik, Subhas Sarkar and Debasree Chaudhuri lost in their respective constituencies. The fifth, John Barla, was denied a ticket.
This time, several BJP MPs from its 12 in Bengal, such as Bishnupur’s Saumitra Khan and Alipurduar’s Manoj Tigga, had been discussed as probables.
A BJP source said now the party could face a fresh round of discontent over being overlooked for ministerial berths. Trinamool Congress has already claimed that some BJP MPs have been in touch with them since the results.
Since June 4, when the election outcome revealed that the party could bag only 12 seats, six less than what it achieved in 2019, questions about the organisational failure of the BJP’s state unit became the centre of discussion.
Majumdar was appointed as the BJP state president in September 2021, replacing Dilip Ghosh, who led the party in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly elections.
Among many leaders, Ghosh was one of those who publicly criticised the poor performance of the state unit and questioned the capabilities of the office-bearers for the growth of the party in Bengal. This time, Ghosh was also shifted from his constituency Medinipur to Burdwan Purba, which invited questions about whether this transfer was meant to make him lose, which he did.
Asked to comment on his role as junior minister, Majumdar said he had no personal choice and would work in whatever role the BJP central leadership assigned him.
“There is no like or dislike.... Whatever responsibility the party confers on me, I will execute that. I will follow the instructions of our senior leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and J.P. Nadda,” the Balurghat MP said.
A senior leader in the BJP said that giving a berth to Majumdar paved the way to remove him from the post of state president following the relative debacle of the BJP in Bengal.
“It (the post of junior minister) is not a reward.... Sukanta was gently kicked up. Now a new man or man will come to lead the party in Bengal,” said the leader.
As it was more or less confirmed that Majumdar would no longer be state BJP president, many names started doing rounds in the power corridors of the party since Sunday afternoon.
“The party is also mulling if a woman will be made state president. Nothing is final. But there will be a reshuffle across various party layers,” said a BJP veteran.
