Within 24 hours after sending showcause letters to two BJP leaders in West Bengal — Joy Prakash Majumdar and Ritesh Tiwari — the saffron party has suspended them temporarily.

In a letter issued by the Office Secretary Pranmoy Roy, it has been said that as part of disciplinary action the BJP has temporarily suspended both the leaders.

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The saffron party is conducting an enquiry and both the leaders will remain suspended till the enquiry is over. The two leaders were indulging in anti-party activities publicly.

Though, there was no immediate reaction available from the BJP regarding the suspension of the leaders, sources in the party said that the action was taken on the direction of West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar.

The party state unit has taken the permission of the central leadership before initiating action against the two leaders.

The letter of suspension comes after Joy Prakash Mujumdar met Union Minister of State for Port, Shipping and Waterways, Shantanu Thakur just after the showcause letter was given to the former and had a meeting with the latter for more than three hours. This didn’t go down well with the top leaders of the state BJP unit.

It was even more surprising because the party had given both the leaders a time of 15 days for their reply to the showcause letter but within 24 hours they were suspended. The party didn’t even wait for their reply.

On Sunday, the party gave showcause letters to two long-time leaders of BJP — Majumdar and Tiwari — for giving anti-party statements for the last few days. This was considered to be a serious breach of discipline. The two leaders were asked to reason why action will not be taken against them.

The letter comes few days after Union MoS Shantanu Thakur had a meeting with the disgruntled BJP leaders of the state, including two party MLAs — Subrata Thakur and Ashok Kirtania — and Sayantan Basu, who has recently lost the post of party’s State General Secretary.

The meeting was also attended by Joy Prakash Majumdar — one of the prominent faces in Bengal BJP, who has been demoted to a spokesperson from the party’s State unit Vice-President, is also present in the meeting. Apart from that, three prominent leaders of the state BJP — Ritesh Tiwari, Tushar Mukhopadhyay and Debashis Mitra have joined the meeting.

Just after the meeting, BJP State General Secretary (organisation), Amitava Chakraborty had filed a complaint with the central leadership against 10 rebel leaders for indulging in anti-party activities and breaking the basic protocol and discipline of the party.

Sources in the BJP had said that the central leadership also assured the party state unit that the matter will be taken up with all seriousness.