The release of the BJP’s list of candidates for the third and fourth phases of the Bengal Assembly polls has erupted in the face of the party with protests breaking out across Bengal on Monday against several nominees.
State BJP leaders fear the outbursts will have a negative impacts on the party’s prospects in the elections if not addressed immediately.
“These protests will send a wrong signal. As it is, we are being ridiculed for not naming all candidates together and fielding MPs in the Assembly polls. Now, the protests will adversely affect the party’s image,” a state leader said.
On Sunday, the BJP announced candidates for 63 of the 75 seats that would go to the polls in the third and the fourth phases. Within hours, BJP workers hit the streets against the candidates in several seats across the state.
A broken windowpane. Amit Kumar Karmakar
Old-timers of the party from constituencies such as Panchla, Udaynarayanpur, Raidighi and Diamond Harbour gathered in front of the BJP’s election office in Calcutta’s Hastings on Monday. MP Arjun Singh, also a Trinamul turncoat, sought to address their issues and sent them back with a promise that their concerns would be taken care of.
The BJP has fielded Mohit Ghanti in Panchla, Trinamul turncoats Dipak Halder and Shantanu Bapuli in Diamond Harbour and Raidighi, respectively. Sumit Ranjan Karar is the BJP candidate in Udaynarayanpur.
State BJP general-secretary and party’s observer for north Bengal Sayantan Basu was summoned by Shivprakash, joint general secretary (organisation), to discuss the emerging situation and how to pacify the agitators.
“I’ll be going to Alipurduar tomorrow (Tuesday). There is some issue with the candidature of Bishal Lama in Kalchini and Ashok Lahiri in Alipurduar. It will all be resolved at a meeting,” Basu said. Lama is a turncoat from the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and was a close aide to Bimal Gurung. Lahiri is an eminent economist.
In Hooghly’s Singur, the party’s old guards have been protesting the candidature of Trinamul turncoat Rabindranath Bhattacharya since Sunday. The BJP Hooghly district office at Chinsurah was locked up for over two hours on Monday. The protesters were also joined by party workers from Chandernagore and Uttarpara.
Later in the day, the Chinsurah office was allegedly vandalised by party dissenters to protest against fielding of Trinamul turncoats in Singur and Uttarpara.
While the BJP’s candidate for Uttarpara is another Trinamul turncoat Prabir Ghoshal, the party has fielded one of its state leaders Deepanjan Guha in Chandernagore. Several posters have sprung up across Uttarpara and Chandernagore seeking the removal of both Ghoshal and Guha. The posters accused Ghoshal of being involved in multiple scams. Guha has been labelled as an “outsider” and the posters demanded a local candidate.
In Saptagram, BJP workers protested against the induction of Trinamul turncoat Debabrata Biswas into the party. Biswas, who joined the BJP on Sunday, is the party’s potential candidate for the Assembly constituency. In Saptagram’s Bansberia, some BJP workers laid on railway tracks and threatened to commit suicide if Biswas was nominated. They were later restrained by their party colleagues.
“Debabrata Biswas is a tainted Trinamul man. He was the president of the Mogra panchayat samity in Chinsurah. He joined the BJP after he was denied a ticket by Trinamul. We hear he will be our candidate, which we don’t want,” said Nirupam Mukherjee, convenor of the BJP’s fisherman cell and one of the leaders who threatened to commit suicide.
“We have spoken to the agitators. A report describing the details of their demands and the agitation has been sent to the leadership,” said BJP’s Hooghly district chief Gautam Chatterjee.
A state-level BJP leader said the party was confident of winning five of the seven seats that were part of the Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency but whatever had happened in Singur, Saptagram and Chandernagore on Monday would have a ripple effect on other Assembly constituencies as well.
He added that in the backdrop of the widespread discontent amongst party workers, Union home minister Amit Shah called an emergency meeting with state leaders on Monday night. The meeting was attended by BJP’s national chief J.P. Nadda and general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh.
After addressing a meeting in Bankura on Monday, Shah had gone to poll-bound Assam to speak at a rally. Although he was supposed to leave Assam for Delhi, Shah decided to return to Calcutta and sit with his party colleagues.
The BJP, however, managed to contain two dissident BJP leaders Pradip Lodha and Dhiman Koley by inducting them into the party’s state committee as permanent invitees. Lodha and Koley had filed nominations from Garbeta and Salboni seats. They had been persuaded by BJP’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya to withdraw their nominations.
“Since Pradipda and Dhimanda withdrew their nominations they were inducted into the state committee. But, given the kind of agitation that is being reported from everywhere, the party must start thinking how many people can be inducted into the state committee?” a BJP source said.
