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At a time when fissures within the Bharatiya Janata Party West Bengal unit have started to show in the wake of the party’s ‘disappointing’ performance in the parliamentary polls in the state, a suggestive statement from veteran leader Dilip Ghosh sparked speculations on whether the ‘old-versus-new’ debate is about to get reignited.

Quoting former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Ghosh on Thursday posted on X: “Keep one thing in mind, even one old Karyakarta of the party should not be neglected. If necessary, let ten new Karyakartas get separated. Because the old workers are the guarantee of our victory. Trusting new Karyakartas too quickly is not advisable.” The tweet came in the wake of Ghosh’s shocking defeat from the Bardhaman-Durgapur seat in the hands of TMC’s Kirti Azad by nearly 1.38 lakh votes.

While the BJP had publicly proclaimed its target of winning 30 Lok Sabha constituencies or more from Bengal this time, it had to ultimately settle for 12 seats, six less than its 2019 tally.

Ghosh, former party state president and MP from the Medinipur constituency, was relocated to Bardhaman-Durgapur, a seat where the battle against TMC was perceptively tough, where he replaced outgoing MP SS Ahluwalia. The latter, in turn, was moved to Asansol. The party’s sitting MLA from Asansol Dakshin, Agnimitra Paul, replaced Ghosh at Medinipur.

All three BJP candidates were trounced by their TMC counterparts in the recently-concluded polls.

The reshuffle of candidates, though finalised by the party’s central election committee, is widely believed to have been brought about at the instance of the state’s leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who jumped ship from the TMC ahead of the 2021 state polls.

Ghosh, a leader with strong RSS roots, who had earlier shied away from questioning the party’s decision to change his seat and maintained he did his best to overcome the fresh challenge, sounded out of sync with his previous statements for the first time.