BJP leaders from other states to rejuvenate party workers

In a desperate bid to rejuvenate party workers, the central BJP has engaged party leaders from Odisha, Uttaranchal, Utter Pradesh and Bihar to look after the Assembly segments.

BJP leaders from all across the country will work together with their counterparts in state. There are 294 Assembly seats and 77,000 polling booths in West Bengal.  

The central leaders including Shiv Prakash, Siddharth Nath Singh and Kailash Vijayvargiya were shocked to see that the Mahasampark Abhiyan had totally collapsed in the state.  During the membership drive, 43 lakh people had become primary members. 

It was decided that the state leaders would meet all of them. There would be training courses for them where party ideology would be taught. 

Among them, efficient and politically conscious members would be recruited as party workers during the elections. It was found that only 5 per cent of the total primary members have got the training. 

Giving up the idea to get in touch with them, the leaders are now busy meeting party workers in district level.

There is tremendous resentment among the workers. The district presidents of Murshidabad and Jhargram were replaced within one-and-a-half months after they were appointed. However, the workers were assured that the presidents would be replaced soon. 

The central leaders found that their counterparts in state do not have clear idea of the districts and their political composition. The workers, who were close to former president Rahul Sinha, have been sidelined including Ritesh Tewari and Asim Sarkar. 

Sinha, who is now national secretary, was not invited during the march from Kamduni to Kakdwip. Party leaders said the march was nothing but a gimmick. 

The state leadership are playing the old record that during 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP got 17 per cent votes and party candidates did well in 29 wards including Bhowanipur, which is the Assembly constituency of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.  

However, they have failed to admit the ground reality that party’s popularity has gone down over the years. In all the elections that included two Assembly by-elections, civic elections which were held after 2014 polls, party candidates could not perform well. “The state leadership is in a dream world and if the party is being run in this way, it will face disaster during the Assembly polls,” a BJP state committee member said.