The BJP’s Bengal minder Sunil Bansal, during an organisation meeting on Saturday instructed that all block, mandal and state committees formed between January 17 and 25 must include at least 33 per cent of the party’s old workers.
Bansal’s directive reflects the central leadership’s effort to address the divide between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ BJP in the state, aiming to unify the party for a stronger fight against the Trinamool Congress in the 2026 Assembly elections.
The factional differences within the party became evident during the membership drive, with allegations against several senior leaders for not actively participating until central leaders Bansal and Mangal Pandey warned state leaders of being sidelined, compelling them to take to the streets.
As a result, the party has managed to enroll only some 40 lakh members so far, falling significantly short of the one-crore target target set by Union home minister Amit Shah during his visit to Calcutta on August 27.
“We have crossed the 40-lakh mark. We are still getting a lot of phone calls and so we are keeping the phone lines open. We hope to cross the 50 lakh by January 10. We have verified the forms and the quality of the members is satisfactory,” BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said.
“On Saturday, the BJP national general secretary said that there should be at least 50 members at the booth level committees of which one-third should be old workers of the party. The central leadership wants strong people at the booth level so that they can contest against Trinamool,” a senior party leader, who was present in the meeting, said
Although the senior leader did not clarify the definition of ‘old workers’, he said that the Bengal central observer not only wanted a competent and strong booth president but also advocated for committees made up of competent individuals, rather than those selected based on their proximity to state leaders.
Bansal’s instruction came at a time when despite Majumdar’s attempt to project confidence, party sources admitted that organisational flaws were exposed during the membership drive as several senior BJP booth-level workers remained inactive.
This led to many senior Bengal BJP leaders openly addressing the issue of groupism within the ranks.
“So long I was president, the party expanded (in Bengal). We got 41 per cent votes in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. I never promoted any groupism in the party. I was the president of the party and not of any group. Now if the leaders are speaking of factionalism openly, then the party will have to think about it seriously. I believe that those who are performing in the party should be given more responsibility,” former state president Dilip Ghosh said.
This is not the first time but the BJP central leadership, to avoid allegations of partiality, has taken a result-driven approach.
They have mandated that only members who recruited at least 100 new members would qualify as “active” and be eligible for a place in organisational and district
committees.
The central leadership has also instructed all the districts to publicly display the names of “active” members by January 10.
According to sources in the party, the election of booth committees will take place between January 17 and 25.
