One year after joining Congress, former Raj minister Deepak Joshi back in BJP
After joining the Congress, Joshi had made several allegations against Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He had even charged the saffron party with ruining the Jansangh’s legacy.
A central team of BJP will visit West Bengal to review the reasons behind the defeat of the party in the by-elections for the Dhupguri assembly constituency in Jalpaiguri district, the result for which was declared on Friday.
It is learnt the central team will be headed by the party’s nation general sec- retary B.L Santosh.
He will be holding a series of meetings with state leadership of the party on Sunday and Monday to review the reasons for the defeat though at a narrow margin.
The party’s central leadership is viewing the Dhupguri victory quite seriously since BJP’s Bishnu Pada Roy got elected from this constituency in the 2021 West Bengal assembly. His sudden demise early this year necessitated the by- polls.
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Sources said that the defeat is being viewed more seriously by the central lead-
ership in view of the big battle of 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the constituen- cies in north Bengal are the strongestbastionsforBJP.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls the ruling Trinamool Congress did not manage to win from a single of the eight LokSabha constituencies from North Bengal. While BJP candidates won from seven constituencies, Congress won from one in 2019.
In 2021 West Bengal assembly polls, BJP’s performance was much better in North Bengal compared to that in South Bengal.
“The margin of victory is not high enough that it cannot be repaired before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. But it seeds greater coordination in leadership,” said a member of the BJP’s state committee on strict condition of anonymity.
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