The Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Rajya Sabha Samik Bhattacharya is set to spearhead the party's Bengal unit into next year's Assembly elections. Wednesday night on the last day for filing nominations, Bhattacharya's was the only name in consideration. This morning, when Bhattacharya went to file his nomination for the party president’s post, the incumbent Sukanta Mazumdar and leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari had accompanied him.
A statement released by the BJP on Wednesday evening said Member of Parliament and former union minister RS Prasad will announce the name of the new president on Thursday in an event at the Science City auditorium.
If Bhattacharya gets promoted, Mazumdar will join the list of those party leaders who didn't have to appear in any Assembly elections. Mazumdar took over from the previous state unit president Dilip Ghosh following the 2021 Assembly polls debacle in which the BJP came nowhere near the majority mark, in spite of the high hype. Ghosh on Wednesday accused CM Mamata Banerjee and her ruling Trinamool Congress of attempting to "protect" the accused in the alleged Kolkata gangrape case, which took place on June 25 inside the campus of a Law college."The facts are still not coming out, and TMC is trying to suppress them. The student leaders of TMC are the ones who are guilty.
Under Mazumdar's leadership, the BJP in the previous year's Lok Sabha elections performed miserably securing only 12 seats, and most importantly some of the incumbent MPs lost.
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A section of the BJP wanted Mazumdar to be kept on at least until the 2026 Assembly polls. But as a junior union minister and the absence of any tangible result under his stewardship hindered Mazumdar. Another section desired Adhikari, but party veterans are cautious about him despite having no option as he is the sole mass leader the party has currently. However, Bhattacharya will be the middle of the road option.
The BJP's new party state unit head will have scant time to put house in order if the BJP is to genuinely threaten the ruling Trinamool, its strongest political challenger from all over India. On paper, the BJP with 65 MLAs is still the only opposition to the Trinamool.
Since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bengal BJP has gradually lost ground to the Trinamool. In subsequent bypolls, BJP not only lost all the 11 so far, but was also unable to win the lead it had in the Lok Sabha elections in the four Assembly constituencies of Raiganj, Madarihat, Ranaghat South and Bagdah. In the recent bypoll conducted for the Kaliganj Assembly constituency, the BJP vote percentage decreased to 28.29 from the 30.91 per cent it had received in the 2021 Assembly election.
Bhattacharya's asset is his rapport with the leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly and the face of the BJP in the state, Suvendu Adhikari. A swayamsevak since 1971, Bhattacharya, who was born in 1963, is one of the BJP's best-known speakers and has been the party's chief spokesperson, hitting out at the Trinamool strongly.
For the incoming president, the way the BJP must go to win over voters into its fold appears to be the top agenda. Former state BJP chief and former governor of Tripura and Meghalaya Tathagata Roy has already made his voice heard in support of Bhattacharya.
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