Bengal BJP leaders, bitter over recent bye-elections debacle, seek blessings of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Kailash Vijaywargiya, national general secretary, BJP, Mukul Roy, national executive committee member took the blessings of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, at Kolkata’s Netaji Indoor Stadium last week

The considerable setback to the BJP in the recently concluded bye-elections in Bengal has set off a heated discussion within the party whether it needs to rethink its strategy on the National Register of Citizens (NRC). A section of the leadership has unequivocally blamed the party’s overemphasis on its implementation for the loss, but others, including state president Dilip Ghosh, are of the opinion that the blame should not be put on it.

“How can the NRC be a factor for defeat in the Kharagpur Sadar Assembly constituency,” asked Mr. Ghosh, also an MP from the region. “As Kharagpur has a cosmopolitan population of Hindi speaking and also Telugu people settled there for decades, how can the NRC be a factor,” he asked. Mr. Ghosh said it was a little premature to blame the NRC and the party would analyse the reasons for its defeat. He said the Trinamool had done no miracle in the six months leading the the election and the reason people voted against the BJP needed to be analysed.

However not all agree. TheBJP’s Kaliaganj candidate, Kamal Chandra Sarkar, told presspersons that the NRC was the sole reason if he lost the election. This was before the results were announced.“We could not explain it to the people who are in fear,” said Mr. Sarkar, who lost by 2,414 votes. The BJP had secured 56,000 more votes than the Trinamool in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in the seat.

Another person who agreed with this assessment was union minister of state and BJP MP from Asansol Babul Supriyo. “It is very easy to instil fear among the people and the clever politician which Mamata Banerjee is, she used the (NRC) issue very skilfully to instil fear,” Mr. Supriyo said.