The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for the West Bengal assembly polls scheduled in three months.
The saffron party’s state unit on Wednesday announced its long-delayed state committee, unveiling a carefully weighted organisational reset. The move aims to balance old loyalties, contain internal rivalries, and ring-fence key electoral players ahead of a high-stakes contest, according to a report by news agency PTI.
The 35-member body, finalised nearly half a year after Samik Bhattacharya assumed charge as state president, signals a deliberate political choice – to privilege organisational discipline over individual prominence, streamline campaign management, and draw a clear line between leaders tasked with fighting elections and those entrusted with running the party machinery, the news agency said.
The 294-member West Bengal Assembly is due to go to polls in April-May.
The Trinamool Congress, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been in power for three consecutive terms since 2011, following a long period of left rule. The BJP has never won assembly elections in Bengal.
Though the BJP leadership had initially planned to roll out the team before Durga Puja, persistent friction between the party’s old guard and post-2019 inductees repeatedly delayed the exercise, underlining the BJP’s unresolved internal churn in Bengal following its 2021 defeat, the PTI report said.
Party insiders told the news agency that the list bears the imprint of a principle laid down by central observer Sunil Bansal: leaders preparing to contest elections will not simultaneously run the organisation.
Dilip Ghosh out of the panel
Former state president Dilip Ghosh has been excluded from the state committee, despite recent public messaging from the central leadership urging veterans to remain politically active.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has reportedly asked Ghosh to step up his engagement recently, fueling expectations of a formal organisational role.
Ghosh’s exclusion points to a conscious restructuring aimed at preventing parallel centres of authority as the BJP prepares for what many see as its toughest state contest since 2021.
Of the five who served under the previous regime, only Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato and Locket Chatterjee have retained the post, anchoring organisational work in western and southern Bengal, regions where the BJP is keen to arrest erosion.
The other three, Agnimitra Paul, Jagannath Chatterjee and MLA Deepak Barman, have been elevated as vice-presidents, a move widely read within the party as honour without operational control. All three are expected to be in the electoral fray.
“Fighting an election and running an election are two very different tasks,” a senior BJP functionary told PTI, summing up the thinking behind the redesign.
Among the key beneficiaries of the reshuffle is Bishnupur MP Saumitra Khan, who has been elevated to the position of general secretary.
He is joined by North Bengal organiser Bapi Goswami and Kolkata-based organiser Shashi Agnihotri, leaders unlikely to be candidates and chosen instead for booth-level management and cadre mobilisation.
Their elevation also reflects a careful old-new balance: Goswami represents the RSS-rooted old cadre, while Khan, a post-2019 inductee, is being rewarded for holding ground in Bishnupur even as the party’s southern Bengal base thinned after 2021.
At the same time, Bhattacharya has reopened doors for sidelined veterans. The return of Tanuja Chakraborty as vice-president, once the face of the party’s women’s wing, signals the selective rehabilitation of sections of the old cadre base.
The BJP also named new heads for its frontal organisations, a crucial mobilisation layer ahead of the polls. Indranil Khan will continue to lead the youth wing, Falguni Patra the Mahila Morcha, Rajiv Bhowmik the Kisan Morcha, Shubhendu Sarkar the OBC Morcha and Sujit Biswas the SC Morcha. MP Khagen Murmu has been appointed head of the ST Morcha.
Equally notable is the accommodation of turncoat TMC leader Tapas Ray as vice-president, reinforcing the BJP’s continued dependence on leaders with TMC backgrounds to expand its urban and semi-urban footprint, a strategy that has delivered mixed electoral returns in the past against the ruling party.
12 VPs, 5 general secretaries
In all, the committee comprises 12 vice-presidents, 5 general secretaries and 12 secretaries, with women accounting for 7 members, or roughly one-fifth of the total strength. Separate announcements also named the heads of various frontal wings as the party looks to activate its social coalitions.
With the Election Commission expected to announce the poll schedule after the SIR process concludes in February, the BJP’s latest organisational bet appears aimed at damping internal disquiet, sharpening booth-level focus and presenting a united, if carefully curated, front.
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