Amit Shah to hold meeting with Bengal BJP unit

BJP national president Amit Shah will hold a meeting of top party leaders from Bengal in the national capital on Wednesday amidst the ongoing tussle in the unit.

Party sources said on Tuesday that state BJP president Dilip Ghosh and senior leader Mukul Roy will take part in the meeting which will discuss organisational issues and the upcoming BJP organisational elections in the state.

Ghosh said the meeting is a routine one and denied that there would be discussions on his differences with Roy. "Every two months we have such meetings on organisational progress in the state. All the organisational issues will be discussed".

But state BJP sources said the differences between Roy and Ghosh will be discussed during the meeting.

The differences between the two BJP leaders came out in the open over induction of former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and his friend Baisakhi Banerjee on August 14 at the BJP headquarters in Delhi.

Chatterjee had recently said he would quit BJP if TMC MLA Debashree Roy joins the party. He had expressed his desire to quit the saffron party barely after two weeks of joining it as he "felt humiliated" due to certain remarks by state unit leaders.

Ghosh dismissed Sovan's allegation saying no one can join it by setting any "pre condition" and every member has to abide by the rules and regulations of the party.

"At a time when people of Bengal are looking at us (BJP) as an alternative, differences between the two top leaders of the state unit has not gone down well with the central leadership and has sent out a wrong message to the cadres," a senior state BJP leader said.

Buoyed by its performance in the Lok Sabha election when it had bagged 18 out of a total 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, only four less than the TMC, BJP leaders have been asserting that their next target is to unseat Mamata Banerjee from power in the 2021 state polls.