Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and his predecessor Dilip Ghosh on Sunday publicly traded barbs over their political experience at a time when the party was plagued by factional feuds following a series of electoral setbacks in the state.

On Thursday, Ghosh had quipped that Majumdar was new to politics and lacked experience. He said old-timers in the party should be used to run the organisation efficiently.

On Sunday, Majumdar replied that he had had more experience when he had been anointed as the Bengal chief of the BJP than what Ghosh had when he had taken charge.

“Everyone begins politics as inexperienced. When I became the state president, I had been an MP for two-and-a-half years. I had political experience of two-and-a-half years. When Dilipda began, he had experience between six months and a year,” Majumdar told journalists on the sidelines of an organisational meeting, where Ghosh was also present, in Midnapore town.

In response to Majumdar’s jibe, Ghosh, the Midnapore MP and the national vice-president of the BJP, said the party had made a “42-year-old youth” as the state president.

“I didn’t say (that Majumdar is inexperienced), he (Majumdar) himself did,” Ghosh said. “I’m always with him. Our party has made a 42-year-old youth the chief of a state where we have so many MPs and MLAs. In other parties, one isn’t named a chief unless he/she is old. These young people will work for the party for the next 50 years,” he added.

Although there was no apparent criticism in Ghosh’s comment, BJP insiders said mentioning Majumdar’s age was the former state chief’s own way of pointing out Majumdar’s inexperience.

Ghosh had been inducted from the RSS into the BJP in 2014. He was appointed as the state BJP chief on December 10, 2015.

Ghosh was elected as an MLA from Kharagpur Town in 2016, he had not been a public representative. In 2019, he was elected as an MP from Midnapore.

Majumdar, who joined politics in 2019, was elected as an MP from Balurghat in the same year. He replaced Ghosh on September 20, 2021, as the state BJP chief.

Multiple sources who spoke to this correspondent wondered what had prompted Majumdar to reply to Ghosh’s statement four days later. Majumdar had initially refused to comment on Ghosh’s Thursday statement.

Many BJP leaders and office-bearers said Majumdar’s change of stance might be the handiwork of the party’s state general-secretary (organisation) Amitava Chakraborty.

“We all know of Sukantada’s proximity to Amitavada. It appears Sukantada spoke out against Dilipda probably under the influence of Amitavada, who doesn’t believe in being silenced by rivals within the party,” a source said.

However, every BJP leader The Telegraph spoke to admitted that Majumdar and Ghosh should not have engaged themselves in a “public spat” at a time the party was riddled with factionalism.