KOLKATA: Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh, at his first meeting with the party’s national president J P Nadda since the assembly polls, complained against a section of senior party leaders shooting their mouths off in public. Ghosh told Nadda that such remarks were “confusing” the BJP’s “old disciplined soldiers”.
“Some people are passing comments in public without a thought. I believe they are venting their frustration. They should have placed their views in the party forum. Old disciplined BJP soldiers stand confused,” the state BJP president said after coming out of Nadda’s Delhi residence on Monday.
Ghosh had left for Delhi on Saturday to keep the BJP brass posted about the recent actions of some BJP leaders — namely Bishnupur MP Saumitra Khan and former junior Union minister and Asansol MP Babul Supriyo.
The BJP’s central disciplinary board deals with party MPs and national executive members. Respective state units can also crack the whip on members over breach of discipline. Ghosh chose to keep the BJP brass posted when Khan resigned as BJP Yuva Morcha president and retracted later following the intervention of central leader B L Santosh.
Once the blue-eyed boy of PM Narendra Modi, Supriyo is believed to share a good rapport with BJP seniors in Delhi. Ghosh, thus, left it to Nadda to take a call on the Asansol MP over his social media posts. The former Union minister, on the other hand, put to rest all speculation about his future. “Lots of rumours are floating in the air. Don’t indulge in that please. Judge me by my deeds, not by the rumour,” Supriyo said in his Facebook post on Monday.
The BJP brass hasn’t issued a showcause to its national vice-president Mukul Roy after he rejoined Trinamool Congress. The Bengal BJP, on its part, is marking the comments of former minister Rajib Banerjee and state party secretary and former MLA Sabyasachi Dutta who have been knocking on Trinamool doors. “The party has a disciplinary committee. It is in touch with some of the members, trying to persuade them. If members don’t mend their ways and refuse to fall in line, the disciplinary committee will take steps,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh reminded that the party had to pass through a “dangerous situation” immediately after the assembly polls when BJP workers came under attack and thousands were forced to leave their home. “The BJP president wanted to know about the situation at the grassroots and our future programmes. He also wanted to know about the views on polls at district-level meetings,” Ghosh said.
The state BJP chief also spoke to Nadda about ways to “engage” former Union ministers Debasree Chaudhuri and Supriyo in organizational work.
Internal feud in the BJP, meanwhile, continued in south Bengal — particularly in the Matua belt of North 24 Parganas — even after Bongaon MP and Matua leader Shantanu Thakur was made a junior Union minister in the recent ministry reshuffle.
Three MLAs from this belt — Subrata Thakur (Gaighata), Ashok Kirtania (Bongaon Uttar) and Biswajit Das (Bagda) — skipped the party’s organizational meeting on Sunday while Ghosh was out of town. According to local leaders, at least two MLAs didn’t attend the meeting on the orders of “someone senior” to mount pressure on the state leadership to change the BJP’s Bongaon president.
