‘A chief ministerial face is also needed to put brakes on the infighting among BJP leaders’.
New Delhi: If the BJP wants to win the upcoming Assembly elections in Bengal, it must bring in a popular face as their chief ministerial candidate to take on Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, multiple BJP leaders from Bengal told The Sunday Guardian.
A senior leader from the BJP’s Bengal unit speaking to this newspaper said that to take on Mamata Banerjee and dethrone her from her own bastion, the party needs to declare a Chief Ministerial face soon.
“Time is running out and we are just less than nine months away from the elections. The Central leadership must decide on a CM face that is strong enough to take on the TMC-led by Mamata Banerjee,” the senior BJP leader said.
Another leader from the Bengal unit of the BJP who spoke to this correspondent also said that if the BJP does not declare a CM candidate, a winning battle would be lost. “The BJP has very high chances of coming to power in the state, but the party cannot implicate styles of not declaring CM face as it does in other northern states. Here in Bengal, it is very important for the voters to know who they are going to see as their CM if they are dethroning Mamata Banerjee,” the BJP leader said.
He further added that the CM face is also pertinent at this time to put brakes on the infighting among the BJP leaders.
“The people of Bengal want to see poriborton (change) in real sense, but who would bring about the poriborton for them is also important. We must also not forget that Mamata Banerjee is a strong CM face who still holds mass base in the state and a counter face of someone who can fiercely fight it out on the street is what is needed in Bengal at this time,” the leader quoted above said.
Several names of a probable Chief Ministerial candidate for Bengal are doing the rounds in the political corridors of both Bengal and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in Delhi (BJP headquarters).
Some of the names that have come up include Locket Chatterjee, who has been the Mahila Morcha President of Bengal BJP’s state unit and currently MP from Hoogly; state president Dilip Ghosh is also pushing himself as the CM candidate, while Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, who is close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is also trying his luck at being declared the CM face for Bengal.
Mukul Roy, who was once the closest aide of Mamata Banerjee, is also “arm twisting the party” to give him some post. Roy joined the BJP leaving his erstwhile party, the TMC, in 2017 and ever since then, Roy had not been given any significant position in the party.
Even Union Minister of State and MP from Asansol Babul Supriyo is trying to pave his way for the top job.
Apart from this, several other names from the RSS are doing the rounds in Bengal BJP. RSS sources from Bengal have also told this correspondent that even their survey has shown that the people of Bengal are willing to know who their next CM would be and that they have submitted a report on this to the Central BJP leadership. The BJP leadership at the Centre has already held a meeting with the state office bearers of the party in Delhi last month.
The severe infighting within the BJP’s Bengal unit is also something that the BJP leadership in Delhi is concerned about. And according to sources, Union Home Minister and former party president Amit Shah is directly looking after Bengal.
“Amit Shah was supposed to meet for a second round of discussion with Bengal leaders last week, but due to his Covid positive report, that meeting has been pushed. Bengal is something that is at the top priority for the Central leadership and soon a consensus would be arrived at on the strategy for Bengal,” a top source in the BJP told this newspaper.
The BJP is going to fight a tough battle against the ruling TMC in Bengal in the upcoming Assembly elections due in May next year. The BJP, which was otherwise irrelevant in Bengal, has now become the primary Opposition party in the state and has also won 18 out of the 34 seats, reducing the number of seats of the TMC almost by half.