Visibly annoyed with the performance of the BJP leaders in West Bengal, the central leadership has asked the state leaders to give a detailed report as to why the party candidate had lost his deposit in the Sagardighi by-election.
Congress candidate Bayron Biswas won the by-election by defeating Trinamul Congress candidate Debashis Bandyopadhyay by over 22,000 votes. The byelection had become necessary after Subrata Saha, a Trinamul minister, died in December 2022.
BJP candidate Dilip Saha got only 20,211 votes. There are 23 lakh voters in Sagardighi and 73 per cent of the voters had exercised their franchise.
A senior BJP leader said the party’s national president JP Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah took strong exception and asked the state leaders to explain. They feel that the state leaders were not giving the real picture to them. Despite repeated instructions, the state leaders have not taken any initiative to build contacts with the people in the rural belt in view of the ensuing panchayat elections. The BJP’s vote share in the Sagardighi by-election drastically dropped to 13 per cent
The central leadership has asked the leaders instead of making statements they should go to the villages and talk to the people and make them realise the futility of the schemes taken by the Trinamul Congress government.
Moreover, there is strong reservation against Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of Opposition whom the leaders still consider an “outsider”. The state leaders feel that Mr Adhikari would never try to consolidate the base of the party and “only project himself before the national leaders through media.