Babul Supriyo, the Asansol MP who lost his berth in the Union ministry in the recent shuffle, on Saturday wrote a Facebook post signalling his decision to quit the BJP and Parliament.

The announcement came at a time the BJP’s Bengal unit is still grappling with the Assembly election setback.

Supriyo acknowledged that his recent removal from the Union ministry had “at least partly” fuelled his decision, admitted to his “differences” with the state leadership and said the “disputes” among senior leaders were hurting the party and demoralising the cadre.

“After answering all the questions that had arisen in my mind, I want to say, in my own way, that I’m leaving,” the 50-year-old singer who had joined the BJP before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections wrote.

“One can do social work without being in politics. I need to organise myself a bit before that…. Resigning from my MP-ship too (obviously),” he added in his long Bengali post, peppered here and there with English expressions and sentences.

Until Supriyo sends his resignation to party president J.P. Nadda and personally hands over a quit letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the Facebook announcement will remain only a statement of intent.

If he resigns from Parliament, it will necessitate a by-election in Asansol where Trinamul won five of the seven Assembly segments this summer.

Calls to Supriyo, and WhatsApp messages asking when he might formally send his resignations to the party and the Speaker, remained unanswered.

Supriyo was a newcomer in politics when he defeated Trinamul heavyweight Dola Sen in 2014 to become MP. He defeated Moon Moon Sen in 2019 but lost to Aroop Biswas from Tollygunge when he contested the Assembly elections this year.

He was junior minister for urban development and then for heavy industries and public enterprises in the first Narendra Modi government. However, he was shifted to the relatively lightweight environment, forests and climate change in 2019 before being eased out from the government in the July 7 shuffle this year.

Party insiders said Supriyo, whose differences with state BJP president Dilip Ghosh were an open secret, had been unhappy for some time over the goings-on in the Bengal unit. He became deeply upset after being dropped from the Union ministry, but his resignation still came as a surprise, an insider said.

“There will be questions why I have decided to quit politics. Has it any links to my losing the ministership? Yes it has, at least partly,” Supriyo wrote in his Facebook post.

A senior BJP member said a couple of phone calls from Delhi could well prompt a rethink by Supriyo, known as a “temperamental person” in party circles.

But even if Supriyo deletes his post and continues in both party and Parliament, a BJP source said, he has already damaged the party by writing openly about disunity in the state unit.

“It’s more proof that the BJP’s central leaders are clueless not only about the political situation in Bengal but also about the infighting and the state of affairs in the Bengal unit,” the source said.

In his post, Supriyo said the central leaders were aware of his desire to quit.

“I went to respected (Union home minister) Amit Shah and respected Naddaji several times over the past few days with the intent of quitting politics. I’m eternally grateful to them that every time they inspired me in some way and sent me back,” he wrote.

Supriyo said he was not interested in “bargaining” for “any post”.

In his original Facebook post on Saturday, Supriyo had called himself a “one team player” and said he would not join any other party: neither Trinamul nor the CPM nor the Congress. He later deleted this portion.

But late at night, he put out a new post saying he had inadvertently deleted this part while editing his original post and reaffirmed that he would not join any other party.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had expressed surprise after Supriyo’s removal from the Union ministry was announced.

On Saturday, Supriyo wrote that his differences with the state leadership predated the Assembly polls and that some of it had become public.

“Sometimes I was responsible for it (I had made a Facebook post that amounted to breaching party discipline); sometimes other leaders too were very much responsible — though today I don’t want to get into who was at how much fault,” he wrote without naming anyone.

He said the rifts in the party and the manner in which they were becoming public was demoralising the grassroots workers. “This is why with all due respect and love for the people of Asansol, I quit,” Supriyo wrote.

Several leaders loyal to Ghosh were unable to hide their joy at Supriyo’s resignation.

“Such people have no place in our party. Good that he has quit,” said a BJP functionary with whom Supriyo had got into a scuffle at a party event in Midnapore that was addressed by Modi.

Ghosh’s initial reaction made it clear that Supriyo’s departure didn’t matter much to him.

“I don’t see anyone’s Facebook or Twitter posts. How can I say who is going where? Whether someone will be in politics is his or her personal decision,” he said.

“Has he resigned? He is still in the Lok Sabha. He is still an MP, our colleague. I don’t know anything yet.”

Party sources said it was time the central leadership put its Bengal house in order.

“Look at how Mukul Roy was sidelined, forcing him to return to Trinamul. Mukulda helped us win 18 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls but Dilipda would not let him work properly and so he left. Babulda’s departure reminds us of that,” a source said.

Roy, a former Trinamul number two, had joined the BJP in 2017. He won from the Krishnanagar North constituency in 2021 but soon after went back to his old party.

Another state BJP leader said: “We lost the election badly. Now leaders are leaving the party. What do we tell our supporters?”

He said the central leaders “seem to have forgotten Bengal” since the Assembly election rout and were now focused solely on Uttar Pradesh.