BJP will not match 2021 seat tally in 2026 elections, claims Dilip Ghosh

Kolkata: Claiming that the BJP won’t match 2021’s seat tally in the 2026 Assembly polls, former state BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Monday stated that PM Modi’s rally in Dum Dum on Friday drew a poor turnout because leaders who had switched to the BJP were given prominence on stage.

Ghosh alleged the rally, which he said had only around 5,000 attendees, was “unusually” thin for a Prime Minister’s event. “Who were on the stage where the PM delivered his speech? If you look closely, most of them were turncoats. Are Suvendu Adhikari, Tapas Roy, Arjun Singh BJP? There are many such names. The BJP had fought against these people,” he said, adding: “As a result, PM Modi’s rally remained empty.”

He asserted that the BJP has little chance in the 2026 Assembly elections. Asked about his party’s prospects next year, Ghosh said: “Results will be bad. The fight for the BJP is to hold on to the seats it won in 2021. It appears the party will not be able to match the number of seats it secured in the 2021 Assembly elections.” Ghosh was not invited to Modi’s rally yet again, making it three times in a row. The PM addressed a rally organised by the party’s state unit at Dum Dum Central Jail ground on Friday evening.

Earlier, he did not get any invitation for Modi’s rally in Alipurduar on May 30 and then in Durgapur on July 18. This time, the aggrieved Ghosh left for Bengaluru to meet the spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the day Modi visited the city. On an earlier occasion on 18 July, he had also left for Delhi hours before Modi visited Bengal to address his party rally in Durgapur the same day.

Party insiders said even after Ghosh had met the new state president Samik Bhattacharya, the saffron party continued to give Ghosh a miss. Bhattacharya after becoming the state president had also tried to pull off a key political optic by holding a one-on-one meeting with Ghosh at the party’s Salt Lake office.