BJP’s Bengal minder Sunil Bansal, scheduled to visit Calcutta on Monday to evaluate state and district-level party leaders, has directed all mandals to conduct booth-level elections and form local committees in some 86,000 booths by Sunday.

However, many senior BJP leaders believe this task is impossible to achieve. Party insiders who did not want to come on quote said that even if half of the target is fulfilled by Sunday night, that would be an achievement.

The figures were being compiled at the time the report was filed.

The party’s failure to achieve even half of its membership target of 1 crore in Bengal had already left senior state leaders apprehensive.

This is a fresh blow.

“We don’t have any organisation in at least five districts including North and South 24-Parganas, Hooghly, Malda and Murshidabad where forming a single committee
is nearly impossible. Previously leaders used to nominate members but now there will be an election and so all the committees have to be authentic and genuine,” said a
senior leader.

The leader also said that apart from these five, the party has minimal organisational presence in most of the South Bengal districts and hence forming committees was
very difficult.

“The BJP members continuously face the threat of Trinamool Congress and no one is ready to support the party openly (in these areas),” he added.

Party sources revealed that for the first time the party had decided to conduct elections for booth-level committees. This move aims to prevent the over-declaration of members and curb nepotism, thereby making it more challenging for district and mandal leaders to meet the minimum membership requirements necessary for forming these committees.

According to the party constitution, a local committee must comprise up to 12 members, including a president. All members will be elected by the primary members of the local committee, with one-third of the positions reserved for women.

Not only that, according to a recent instruction by the central leadership, only the active members can become a part of the committee and there should be at least one-third representation of old members.

“We have tried to convince the old members through our continuous outreach but the party’s internal bickering and continuous pressure from the opposition is preventing them from coming out and supporting us,” a district leader said.

Sources in the party said that Bansal will look into the ground realities and put to test the organisational skills of the district and mandal committee leaders.

“In this present situation, we cannot even form committees in 30,000 booths. We need some additional time and if that is granted, then we might work out something,” a senior state leader said.

Bengal is the only state where the party’s central leadership extended the membership deadline three times. Despite this, the state unit still failed to reach the halfway point of its target of 1 crore members.