With Defections & Dissension, Why is Bengal BJP Seeming Directionless?

All's not looking well for the BJP in West Bengal.

Amid a spate of defections of BJP leaders to the Trinamool Congress, the party's state chief Dilip Ghosh was shifted to the post of the national vice-president, well before his term was due to end.

In his stead, Sukanta Majumdar, a relatively lesser-known first-time MP, has been appointed as the chief of BJP in Bengal, at a time when the party seems to be facing a very serious organisational crisis at the state level.

While there have been complaints about Ghosh's leadership, especially since the BJP faced a humiliating defeat in the state assembly polls unlike its expectations, the change of guard is also believed to have been spurred by a series of desertions from the party that has exposed a chink in its armour.

Ever since their electoral defeat in the state, the BJP has been struggling to keep its party together in West Bengal, with reports of infighting and defections.

Over the past few months, four party MLAs, who were former TMC leaders, have gone back to the TMC – Mukul Roy being one of the prominent faces among them.

But after Roy's 'ghar wapsi,' former Union minister and two-time Asansol MP Babul Supriyo switching to the TMC was perhaps a bigger blow to the BJP.

Now, with murmurs of more possible defections, will the reshuffling in the state leadership be able arrest the niggling problems within the party?

What will be the task ahead for Sukanta Majumdar, the new state unit chief? Why is the party seeming so directionless and imploding with dissension in West Bengal? Tune in!

Producer and Host: Shorbori Purkayastha
Guests:
Ishadrita Lahiri, Kolkata Correspondent, The Quint
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Senior Journalist

Editor: Shelly Walia

Music: Big Bang Fuzz

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