Kolkata: West Bengal BJP held a closed-door working committee meeting on Tuesday, ostensibly to discuss the post-poll scenario, but couldn’t keep the rumblings within under the wrap.
Conspicuous by their absence at the meeting were three senior leaders -- Mukul Roy, Shamik Bhattacharya and Rajib Banerjee.
What added to the gloom within was the tepid explanations put forth by BJP state president Dilip Ghosh to explain the absence. He told a TV channel that BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy could not make it as his wife is unwell, while spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya's father had passed away. TMC minister-turned-BJP leader Rajib Banerjee could not attend the meeting due to personal reasons.
Interestingly, on the sidelines of the meeting, Rajib Banerjee took to Twitter to say that imposing president’s rule in West Bengal, in a knee-jerk response to incidents of post-poll violence, would be going against the people’s mandate.
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“Enough with the criticism. The people elected the government with a majority, they will not take it well if the threat of Section 365 is constantly dangled to oppose the chief minister,” the BJP leader tweeted.
The BJP, keen to deflect attention away from the discordant noises, has announced the launch of a state-wide agitation from June 23.
Even as the cross-current played out in Kolkata, party poster boy Suvendu Adhikari met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. According to sources, he has been advised to consolidate his hold on the party unmindful of the renegades and fence-sitters.
During the closed-door internal meeting, another turncoat leader Sabyasachi Dutta said that language was one of the main impediments for the BJP during the Assembly polls. “There wasn’t a Bengali face, and there was a language issue as well. I respect every language, but people of West Bengal prefer Bengali. Central leaders who came in to campaign mostly spoke in Hindi and a smattering of Bengali. Speaking a language fluently and reading out a script are two different things,” he said.
