BJP appoints RSS man Dilip Ghosh as new party chief in West Bengal

Ahead of the April-May assembly election in Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday changed its state unit chief and brought in a man from strong RSS background to turn around the party.

Incumbent Rahul Sinha was replaced with Dilip Ghosh, who came to the BJP from the RSS a year back and was holding the post of general secretary in the state unit. Sinha has been given a role in the team of national office bearers as a secretary.

“Ghosh was brought from the RSS a year back with plans to eventually take over the reins of the West Bengal BJP. A decision to replace the state president was taken a couple of days back, but the announcement was withheld for different reasons,” a party source told HT.

Before joining the BJP, Ghosh was the in-charge of RSS in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and even worked as an assistant to former RSS chief KS Sudarshan when the latter was prabhari over Sangh activities in the northeast.

The decision to appoint Ghosh as the new BJP chief for Bengal, it is learnt, was taken simultaneously when it was decided to send youth affairs minister Sarbananda Sonowal back to Assam, another poll bound state. Sonowal, who led the Assam BJP during Lok Sabha election, was given back the assignment on November 21.

Some BJP leaders, however, resisted the change in leadership ahead of the assembly election, suggesting it could lead to factionalism. But the party leadership finally took a view last night to replace him and bring in Ghosh so that he gets sufficient time to prepare for the assembly elections.

“Sinha had completed two full terms, the maximum tenure that a person can get under provisions of the party constitution. We expect the party will do extremely well under Ghosh. Sinha will continue to work for the party in Bengal, besides discharging his duties at the national level,” said Sidharth Nath Singh, BJP’s co in-charge for Bengal.

First Published: Dec 11, 2015 17:53 IST