Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh on Thursday said the party would assess the reasons behind its unimpressive performance in the Assembly polls once the victims of post-poll result violence returned home.
His comment once again captured the BJP’s desperation in spinning a narrative around violence after the elections, instead of identifying the mistakes that cost the party dear.
“We will surely analyse the reasons that led to our defeat. The analysis will be done from the grassroots. However, it will be done only after the victims of post-poll violence return to their houses,” Ghosh said after attending an organisational meeting at the party’s Hastings office.
The meeting was presided over by the BJP’s national joint general secretary (organisation), Shivprakash, state general secretaries and co-minders for Bengal Arvind Menon and Amit Malviya.
Sources said a preliminary analysis of the loss had been conducted at the meeting. Sayantan Basu, a general secretary of the state unit, said six districts — Hooghly, North 24-Parganas, West Midnapore, Burdwan East, Birbhum and Howrah — had led to the BJP’s defeat. He also said the party should analyse every Assembly segment it had lost individually.
Another general secretary, Sanjay Singh, who represents the Howrah district, said the party had thought the induction of Trinamul turncoat Rajib Banerjee would help the BJP score better in the district. However Banerjee failed to turn the BJP’s fortune and lost his own seat. The national leaders replied to Singh’s allegation by reminding him that he himself had lost the polls.
The workers at the grassroots, however, want a detailed analysis of the situation. They also want the leaders to take their views into account as well.
The Assembly poll results were declared on May 2, but the BJP state or central leaders haven’t yet sat down formally to discuss why the party’s projection of 200-plus seats didn’t come true and the tally ended only at 77.
Several BJP insiders said though leaders and workers at the district and local levels had been repeatedly trying to reach out to senior functionaries to discuss the reasons behind the poor show, the state office-bearers seemed to be reluctant to engage in a poll performance analysis.
A BJP source said most leaders were busy discussing how to use the post-poll narrative to embarrass the Mamata Banerjee government at Thursday’s meeting and no one bothered to discuss the poll results. “It is important for us to figure out what went wrong. But there is no one to discuss as our leaders know the defeat is a result of their mistakes,” a BJP source said.
“The only thing that they want to talk about is post-poll violence now... I don’t know whether the poll performance analysis can be brushed under the carpet by bringing in this new narrative of post-poll violence,” added the source.
Dilip Ghosh is being blamed by the majority for the lack of interest in analysing the poll results. Although the state president convened meetings at district towns like Hooghly, Asasnol, Midnapore and Bongaon, he didn’t discuss the defeat. In Hooghly and Asansol, Ghosh was surrounded by agitating workers who urged him to listen to their views about the defeat, but the Midnapore MP refused.
“Immediately after the elections, things were bad and we were under attack... The situation, however, improved later. Most of the victims have returned home. This is high time that we discuss the poll results,” a BJP worker from Midnapore said.
It has been decided that the party will hold an agitation programme in Calcutta on June 23 to protest against alleged atrocities by the Trinamul Congress. Similar programmes will be held in different districts on June 25.
