Alipurduar: Internal feud surfaces in BJP
ALIPURDUAR: It seems that BJP is steadily losing ground in Alipurduar with chinks in the saffron armour already showing in the district. This speculation was triggered soon after Alipurduar BJP MLA Suman Kanjilal joined the Trinamool Congress on Sunday evening.
The day after Alipurduar MLA Suman Kanjilal shifted allegiance from the BJP to TMC, Manoj Tigga, BJP MLA of Madarihat blamed the district leadership for the party’s sorry state of affairs.
There are widespread speculations that other BJP leaders from the district could follow Kanjilal’s footsteps.
“Things started taking a nosedive in the party following the announcement of the results of the Assembly elections when former district BJP president Gangaprasad Sharma joined TMC. He was bitter about the way he was being ignored by the state leadership despite ensuring victory in 5 seats. The same thing happened again in the party, but the district leadership preferred to look away,” blamed Tigga. He also said that due to the lack of coordination between the district leadership and the party representatives, such problems were occurring regularly. “The district leadership has failed to organize political programmes. If they continue in such a way the BJP will face a major crisis soon,” prophesied Tigga.Other BJP workers claim that since John Barla became Union Minister and won the Alipurduar seat in the last Lok Sabha elections, he had been hardly seen in his constituency. Despite winning on assurances of development, he has failed to live up to his commitment. Nothing much has happened despite four years of his tenure already gone by. The gap between grass root party workers and the MP has widened.
On Monday afternoon BJP leaders sat in a closed-door marathon meeting at the district BJP office to chalk out ways and means of damage control. District BJP president Bhushan Modak, said: “I don't know why Manoj Tigga leveld such allegations and blamed us. To prove that Suman Kanjilal has no support, we have planned a rally in the district town on February 10.” After the district BJP meeting, on Monday evening a procession of BJP supporters took to the streets and torched an effigy of Kanjilal.
