BJP’s national general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh here on Monday met the new office-bearers of the party’s state unit on Monday but skipped speaking either about the party’s poor performance in the CMC election or protests by some of its MLAs against its internal overhaul.
While three BJP councillors — Meena Devi Purohit, Vijay Ojha and Sajal Ghosh — were felicitated at the meeting, no effort was made to dig deeper.
Multiple party leaders said they hoped Santhosh would at least refer to the civic poll results and ask the state leadership to wake up from slumber.
“Our leaders never do self-analysis. It did not happen after the Assembly poll debacle, nor after the civic polls. However, we had hoped that since Santhoshji is here he would at least call out the state leaders for the underperformance,” a BJP leader said. “Surprisingly, he didn’t refer to the results.”
In the Calcutta civic polls, the BJP managed to wrest three wards, four down from the seven in 2015. A bigger shock for the saffron camp was the dip in its vote share, to around 9 per cent from 29 per cent in the summer Assembly elections.
“Six speakers lectured us for hours on how to develop the organisation. But none of them tried to see their faults,” another source at the meeting said.
Santhosh apart, the five other speakers were state unit chief Sukanta Majumdar, his predecessor Dilip Ghosh, leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, state general secretary (organisation) Amitava Chakraborty and the party’s co-minder for Bengal Amit Malviya.
Santhosh reportedly also remained silent on the protests by nine party MLAs against the recent internal rejig.
On Monday, four MLAs from Bankura, Niladri Sekhar Dana, Nirmal Dhara, Amarnath Shakha and Dibakar Gharami, quit an official WhatsApp group of the BJP over the appointment of new district chiefs in Bankura and Bishnupur.
On Saturday, after the new district committees were announced, five MLAs from Bongaon quit an official WhatsApp group of the BJP complaining that the Matuas hadn’t been adequately represented in the state committee.
The only reference to dissidents in Santhosh’s speech was when he reportedly said: “The party has to be disciplined. Speak less, listen more. Everyone will be given a responsibility; no one will be left out.”
Santhosh announced no one aged above 35 can be a member of the party’s youth wing from now. Earlier, the age limit was 40.
He instructed the newly appointed office-bearers to set up new district committees by January 10.
BJP sources said party president J.P. Nadda will visit Bengal in January. Home minister Amit Shah may also visit the state by January-end.
