BJP rebels Joy Prakash Majumdar and Ritesh Tiwari went ballistic against the central leadership, criticised the organisational structure and equated Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi.

Majumdar and Tiwari were “temporarily suspended” from the BJP on Monday.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Majumdar and Tiwari hit out at the BJP’s Delhi leaders holding their “blunders” responsible for the party’s debacle in the 2021 Assembly polls. While the apparent intention of the dissidents was to publicly attack state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and general secretary (organisation) Amitava Chakraborty, they ended up criticising the national leadership.

“The national general secretary (organisation) had told us before the polls that they would remove the then state chief Dilip Ghosh and the then state OGS Subrata Chattopadhyay and still win the polls. The results are clear. We managed only 77 seats, ” Joy Prakash said.

“The two leaders (Chakraborty and Majumdar) under whom Bengal BJP is currently working have a combined political experience of less than five years. They’re fighting against someone like Mamata Banerjee.... How can you expect to win a match against Messi with three days’ practice?” Majumdar asked.

Hitting out at the state leadership over their suspension, Ritesh said “vindictive politics” was at play against them. Sukanta refused to comment on the charges made by the two on Tuesday.