After the dissent of MLAs from the Matua community, the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing dissent from MLAs of the State’s Jangalmahal region, with legislators writing to theparty president on organisational changes, and also expressing their desire to give up the security cover provided to them by the Centre.
On Friday, two BJP legislators, Bankura MLA Niladri Sekhar Dana and Onda MLA Amarnath Shakha, went on record to say that they had written to the Union Home Ministry, urging that the Central security given to them should be withdrawn.
Only a day ago, sources in the West Bengal BJP had said that five MLAs from the district had written to party president J. P. Nadda, expressing unhappiness over certain organisational appointments. The MLAs are demanding the removal of both Bankura and Bishnupur organisational district presidents.
A similar situation has emerged in the adjoining Purulia district, where the elected MLAs are upset with organisational appointments and have written to the BJP’s top leadership.
Bankura and Purulia are in the State’s forested southwest, in the Jangalmahal region, in which the BJP had won seats in the 2021 Assembly polls, and almost swept the seats in the 2019 general elections.
The development comes close on the heels of MLAs from the Matua community in the region around Bongoan subdivision in North 24 Parganas coming out openly against the BJP’s West Bengal leadership. These leaders have further embarrassed by the party by raising questions on the delay in the framing of the rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
After the Assembly poll resultsin May 2021, almost half a dozen party MLAs switched sides and joined the Trinamool Congress. After the recent organisational changes, BJPMLAs and a section of leaders are targeting the party’s general secretary-organisation, Amitava Chakraborty. The party had to dissolve its cells and committees in the State due to the protests.
Political observers feel that these developments do not bode well for the BJP in West Bengal. Biswanath Chakraborty, Head of the Department of Political Science at the Rabindra Bharati University, said that the BJP’s politics in West Bengal currently is “directionless”.
“BJP MLAs have little hope of the BJP coming to power, and once they do not get space in the organisation, such developments are bound to happen. The BJP’s central leadership is also indifferent to the affairs of the State, and is not taking any action,” Prof. Chakraborty said.
