KOLKATA: BJP national president J P Nadda constituted a new core committee for the party's Bengal unit with an eye on next year's Panchayat polls and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The state BJP unit didn't have any core committee since last year when Sukanta Majumdar was appointed the state president, replacing Dilip Ghosh. The core committee has been advised to meet once every month.
Mithun Chakraborty, who joined BJP in presence of Narendra Modi in 2021, has become a member of the core committee. Apart from Chakraborty, the 20-member new core committee included Sukanta Majumdar and Dilip Ghosh, Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, and the four Union ministers from the state Subhas Sarkar, Shantanu Thakur, John Barla and Nisith Pramanik. Former BJP state president Rahul Sinha has also become a member of the core committee.
BJP national general secretary and state observer Sunil Bansal and the state in charge Mangal Pandey are among the four special invitees to the core committee. Swapan Dasgupta and Amit Malviya have also become invitee members.
Agnimitra Paul, party's MLA from Asansol and Jagannath Chatterjee have been made in-charge of Kolkata zone while Sajal Ghosh, the party's councillor and Dipanjan Guha have become in-charge of Kolkata area.
Priyanka Tibrewal and Biman Ghosh will look after Hooghly. Sanjay Singh and Dipak Barman have been made in-charge of the North Bengal zone.
Ashok Dinda and Krishnendu Mukherjee have become the in-charge of the North 24-Parganas zone. Plagued by exodus in its rank and file, the state BJP unit has been struggling to keep its flock together since the Assembly poll debacle with top leaders and legislators, including Babul Supriyo, Arjun Singh joining the Trinamool.
Meanwhile, reportedly Soumitra Khan has quit from his post of observer after he was not named in BJP's core committee.
However, he did not give any comments about the reason for his resignation.