Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday tried to pre-empt any rebellion within the BJP by assuring poll aspirants, who fear losing out to new entrants during distribution of tickets, that such leaders would be accommodated in “various government posts” if the BJP came to power in Bengal.
Shah made this assurance to party colleagues at a closed-door meeting, which was held in the backdrop of growing discontent in the Bengal BJP over “random inductions” of leaders from rival parties into the saffron camp.
BJP insiders said Shah’s remark was an attempt to quell any possible coup that would happen in the aftermath of distribution of tickets for the Bengal polls.
“Yeh larai sabko milkar larna hai (this fight has to be fought together),” Shah is said to have exhorted colleagues at Saturday’s meeting.
“We will have many posts when we come to power,” he added in his bid to assure party old-timers who are worried that their chances of getting tickets to fight the Assembly polls might become less with the influx of leaders from the Trinamul Congress, CPM or the Congress.
A senior state BJP leader told The Telegraph that Shah made it clear that the primary goal for the party was to win the Bengal election and, though he didn’t mention it, he hinted that winnability would be the sole criterion while distributing tickets.
“There is a possibility of rebellion from those who might lose their potential seats to someone new. Hence, Amitji assured the leaders that even if someone didn’t get a ticket, there was always a chance of him getting a government post later,” the leader said.
However, the leader added that for Shah to take so much pain to assure party colleagues of accommodation in the power structure went to show that the Bengal BJP was still a divided house.
“Someone of Amitji’s stature had to intervene today so that there isn’t any internal feud later. Why wouldn’t the leaders listen to the state president?” a source asked.
The other area of concern of Bengal leaders — security during polls — was addressed by Shah at the meeting.
The crowd at the road show by Amit Shah in Bolpur on Sunday. Picture by Amarnath Dutta
State BJP general secretary Sayantan Basu said Shah had assured them that “enough security forces will be deployed” for a free and fair election. “Amitji knows how lawless Bengal is right now. He assured us that there would be such heavy deployment of central security forces that not even a bird would be able to fly away,” Basu said.
Basu added Shah had reiterated his claim that the BJP would rule Bengal “with no less than 200 seats”.
To accomplish the mission of 200 seats, the BJP has decided to unleash a battery of ministers — from the Centre and other states — who will be visiting the state to hold public meetings across Bengal till the election gets over.
BJP’s national joint general secretary (organisation) Shivprakash and Shah formally introduced five Union ministers — Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Mansukh L. Mandaviya, Sanjeev Balyan, Arjun Munda, Nityanand Rai — and three ministers from other states — Keshav Prasad Maurya, Narottam Mishra and Prahlad Singh Patel — to the Bengal leaders at the Saturday meeting.
These leaders will generally come during the weekends and hold public meetings at places that the BJP feels are “terror-prone”.
“Since these are central ministers or cabinet ministers from other states, the state police will be bound to provide adequate protection to them. This will give us a chance to hold public meetings peacefully,” a leader of the party’s youth wing said.
Shah has told the Bengal leadership that there should be at least five wall graffiti in each booth across the state by January 15. He asked the leaders to ensure that booth level workers visited every single household to scrutinise electoral rolls by January 15.
Suvendu Adhikari, former Trinamul minister who joined the BJP on Saturday, was present at the meeting. Sources said Adhikari told Shah at the end of the meeting that he was “a kid in the party right now” and expressed his desire “to learn from Shah and others in the BJP”.
