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Bengal BJP president not in CM race: TMC after actor is fielded from Kharagpur
The BJP lost the assembly seat in the 2019 by-election which had to be held because Ghosh had contested and won the local Midnapore Lok Sabha seat earlier that year. Kharagpur Sadar went to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the first time.
The never ending speculations on who would be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chief ministerial face in poll-bound West Bengal got a new spin on Wednesday when the party fielded Bengali actor Hiranmoy Chattopadhyay from the Kharagpur Sadar assembly seat that Dilip Ghosh, the party’s state president, had won in 2016.
The BJP lost the assembly seat in the 2019 by-election which had to be held because Ghosh had contested and won the local Midnapore Lok Sabha seat earlier that year. Kharagpur Sadar went to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the first time. The victory was considered a landmark. The winner, Pradip Sarkar, secured 72,893 votes or 47% of the polled votes against 39.29 % that Ghosh secured in 2016. Sarkar has been fielded again by Mamata Banerjee.
Soon after Chattopadhyay, popularly known as Hiran, was named by the BJP on Wednesday afternoon, leaders of the ruling party said that by not fielding Ghosh the BJP made it apparent that he is not in the race for the chief minister’s chair. Some TMC leaders even said Hiran’s nomination indicated that the BJP does not hope to win the Bengal polls.
The eight-phase polling for Bengal’s 294 seats will begin on March 27.
Last week, the BJP named its candidates for the first two phases. Since no candidate was named for Kaharagpur Sadar, where polls will be held on April 1, there were speculations that Ghosh might be fielded again as he has the political advantage of being the local MP.
The speculations gained momentum when some BJP leaders, including national general secretary and observer for West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya, said Ghosh might contest the coming elections.
“It is apparent that Ghosh is not the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate because it was the party that decided not to field him. We will win the elections anyway. The BJP has felt the pulse of the people. It is not in a position to project anyone against Mamata Banerjee,” Bengal’s deputy parliamentary affairs minister Tapas Roy told HT.
A senior Bengal BJP leader, who did not want to be named, said Kharagpur Sadar was a cause for concern for his party because of the humiliating defeat in the 2019 by-polls.
“The defeat became an embarrassment for the BJP. Ghosh had won it by a margin of 45,000 votes. In the by-poll, he fielded Prem Chand Jha, his election agent in 2016. While campaigning for Jha, Ghosh told voters that it was he who was contesting. But Jha was facing a criminal charge. A local resident lodged a police complaint saying his ancestral land was illegally sold by Jha to three Kolkata-based businessmen. Jha had to move the Calcutta high court to seek relief from arrest,” the BJP leader said.
Jha’s defeat came only three years after Ghosh won the seat by defeating veteran Congress leader Gyan Singh Sohanpal who had won 10 times from 1969 to 2011, losing only in 1977. Sohanpal, who was lovingly called ‘Chacha’ (uncle) by the young and old died in 2017 at the age of 92.
Defending the party’s decision to field an actor, BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu said, “Who will contest and from where is a decision only the BJP leadership takes. It is not the TMC’s headache. The ruling party is concerned about our chief ministerial face because it has given up the hope of ruling Bengal.”
Ghosh did not comment on this issue.
During the day, some TMC leaders and a television actor joined the BJP.
Prominent among those who joined the saffron camp is Bachchu Hansda, minister of state for north Bengal development and legislator from Tapan in South Dinajpur district and Gouri Shankhar Dutta, legislator from Tehatta in Nadia district and eight district-level leaders. The two legislators were not fielded by the TMC for the coming polls.
Shankar Ghosh, a CPI(M) youth front leader at Siliguri in north Bengal, also announced that he had resigned from the party and would join the BJP.
