Dilip Ghosh’s recent visit to Digha’s Jagannath Dham and his cordial meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee reopened the schism between core BJP members and those who joined the party from the TMC or Left Front, leaving the saffron camp in unprecedented discomfort ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.
A Bengal BJP source said that the schism wasn’t new, but the Dilip Ghosh episode has taken it to a new high.
Ever since Ghosh, the former state president and widely considered the most successful Bengal BJP leader for helming the party when it secured 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, went to Digha, a political storm has erupted both overtly and covertly within the saffron ecosystem.
“No one in the party supports Dilip da’s meeting Mamata on the Jagannath Dham inaugural day. The party has the right to investigate actions taken by a senior leader like him. However, what followed his visit, particularly the open mudslinging, was unacceptable, as it is harming the party’s organisation on the ground,” said a BJP leader.
Ghosh was the first to mount an attack on the turncoats, a day after he visited Jagannath Dham.
“Those who grew up under Mamata’s protective shadow and later joined the BJP — and are now enjoying the benefits (of the saffron party) —Dilip Ghosh will not take lessons from them,” Ghosh told reporters at Jagannath temple in Digha on Thursday.
BJP’s Bishnupur MP Saumitra Khan immediately countered Ghosh via social media, claiming that most BJP legislators and parliamentarians have come from other parties.
“Is he (Ghosh) forgetting that 42 of the remaining 68 BJP MLAs came from other political parties? All of them have been working to strengthen the BJP in Bengal. According to him, about half of the 12 BJP MPs in Bengal have come from other parties,” Khan, who also joined the BJP from TMC, posted on socialmedia Friday.
A senior BJP leader said that Ghosh’s attack and Khan’s counter clearly exposed the internal battle between the party’s core members and newcomers.
“There was always a difference between those from the RSS background and those who came from other political parties, particularly the TMC. But now, it has been exposed so blatantly that it has become a threat to the party in the upcoming Assembly elections,” said a BJP insider.
Ghosh started his political journey in the early 1980s as an RSS pracharak.
He pointed out that old-timers like Rahul Sinha, Sukanta Majumdar, or any of the general secretaries who were core party leaders did not make any harsh public comments regarding Ghosh’s Digha visit.
Sukanta Majumdar publicly stated that the party did not endorse Ghosh’s visit but refrained from criticising him as strongly as the newcomers did.
Samik Bhattacharya, BJP Rajya Sabha MP, admitted that the entire episode involving Dilip Ghosh was unprecedented and that the party would take measures to prevent a recurrence.
“Dilip da is a senior leader and I can’t comment on his actions or statements. I can only say the episode is unprecedented in the party, and senior leadership is monitoring everything. The party will certainly take steps to prevent its repetition,”said Bhattacharya.
Political observers believe the entire Digha episode reflects a power struggle between former state unit president Dilip Ghosh and current leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who has been promoting a strong Hindutva narrative to corner Mamata in the upcoming Assembly elections.
Though both senior leaders — Ghosh and TMC-turncoat Adhikari — have refrained from attacking each other directly, the party now finds itself divided between its core leadership and the newcomers.
“The Digha episode is the result of political rivalry between Dilip Ghosh and Suvendu Adhikari. While Suvendu is aggressively pursuing a Hindutva agenda against Mamata Banerjee, Dilip Ghosh challenged that narrative by visiting the temple,” said political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty.
“The infighting between Suvendu and Dilip will certainly have a negative impact on the party’s rank and file, and bear long-term effects ahead of the crucial 2026 Assembly elections,” he added.
Chakraborty’s assessment appears valid, as party workers and some leaders have taken to social media to label Ghosh a traitor, citing the ruling party’s post-poll violence in 2021 that targeted BJP workers. In response, Ghosh’s supporters are pointing to the party’s continuedelectoral decline.
There is speculation within the BJP that the RSS and Sangh Parivar were unhappy with Ghosh’s actions in Digha.
However, a senior RSS leader in Calcutta said they saw nothing wrong with Ghosh’s temple visit.
“His meeting with Mamata may be a headache for the BJP, but we don’t see anything wrong in his visit to Jagannath Dham so far,” said the RSS leader.