Just over a month before elections to municipal corporations in Calcutta and Howrah, the state BJP appointed two committees to oversee poll preparations, betraying its dependence on "outsiders" that has, in turn, fuelled further dissention within the ranks.

The committee for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation will be headed by former railway minister in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA II government and former Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi. The other committe for Howrah is headed by another former Trinamul leader, former mayor Rathin Chakraborty, whose joining the BJP led to quite a turmoil in the party's Bengal unit.

In the 180-plus days since the Bengal Assembly poll results sounded the death knell for the BJP's ambition to form a government with a solid drubbing by the electorate and subsequent defections by some elected and some who lost at the hustings, Trivedi has maintained a poise that is unusual in Bengal’s current political landscape.

Trivedi has not issued a single statement that could embarrass the state and central leadership, like some of its legislators who came from the Trinamul and returned to the ruling party’s fold despite winning on a BJP ticket. Soon after Trivedi moved to the BJP he had stepped down as Rajya Sabha MP. He neither hankered for any post in the organisation nor was he offered any.

“Dinesh da has been speaking for the party in the national media. He is articulate and a cautious speaker who represents the party well. After joining BJP he has not made any attempts at lobbying,” said a BJP source. Most BJP leaders feel Trivedi’s silence has earned him the role of leading the party into the civic polls.

“Plus, because of the decades that he has spent hopping from one party to another and then being an MP, he has managed to keep himself in the good books of the triumvirate of Narendra Modi-Amit Shah-JP Nadda,” said a source. “However, we are not sure how effective the committee would be because Dinesh da is not an organisation man. He is effective in parleys and back-room politics. How far he can enthuse our cadres after a continuous losing streak is doubtful,” said a BJP leader.

The committees' composition, however, laid bare the chinks in the BJP’s armour and its continued dependence on “outsiders”. Of the four co-in-charges appointed for the Calcutta committee, only Tushar Kanti Ghosh is a member of the BJP old-guard. The three others, Rudranil Ghosh, Vijay Ojha and Vaishali Dalmia, are all from the Trinamul. BJP MPs Roopa Ganguly and Swapan Dasgupta have also found place as members in the 19-member committee, which has among observers another Trinamul turncoat, the BJP’s MP from Barrackpore, Arjun Singh.

During his days in the Trinamul, Singh had played a key role in Trivedi’s winning the Barrackpore seat in back-to-back elections. In 2019, Singh had joined the BJP and defeated Trivedi.

Similarly, the Howrah committee is headed by the former mayor from Trinamul Rathin Chakraborty, whose appointment had led to a rebellion in the party and resulted in the expulsion of the Howrah urban unit chief. Other former Trinamul leaders who have been included in the committee are Jatu Lahiri, Supriti Chattopadhyay and Bani Singha Roy.