Dilip Ghosh, one of the national vice-presidents of the BJP, has been given organisational responsibilities in seven states and a Union territory amid murmurs in the saffron camp that the central leadership has plucked him out of Bengal to give the people currently at the helm of the state unit a free hand.

Ghosh has been assigned the task of overseeing a drive to strengthen the BJP’s booth organisations in Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Andaman ahead of the 2024 general election. He will be functioning as a member of the committee that will lead the drive. The committee includes the BJP’s national chief J.P. Nadda and general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh.

Ghosh’s term as the Bengal BJP president ended prematurely after the Assembly polls and a new team took guard at 6 Muralidhar Sen Lane in Calcutta last year. The new team — led by state president Sukanta Majumdar and state general secretary (organisation) Amitava Chakraborty — and Ghosh had not been on the same page on most issues, which intensified factional feuds.

“Now, the team under Sukanatada can function independently,” said a source.

After the change of guard in the state unit, Ghosh tried to introduce his successor to the organisation by touring several districts, but the bonhomie didn’t last long and their differences tumbled out in the open last month.

BJP sources said Ghosh shared a strenuous relationship with Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari, the current favourite of the central leadership. Earlier this month, when Union home minister Amit Shah was touring Bengal, Majumdar and Adhikari were seen by his side all along. Ghosh was, however, invited to specific programmes and was even conspicuous by his absence from a core committee meeting.

“Dilipda doesn’t know where to stop and has a tendency to cross the lines.... The central leadership never liked it and finally sent him out of Bengal,” a state BJP office-bearer said.

However, sources close to Ghosh refused to give much importance to his new organisational responsibility.

According to a close associate, Ghosh has been assigned the new task for the next four months and will be back in Bengal soon.

“In our party, all national leaders are given tasks in other states. The same has happened with Dilipda. Only his detractors are thinking that he has been sent out of Bengal,” said the associate, adding that Ghosh had the experience of working at places like Andaman or the Northeast as an RSS pracharak.

Ghosh told journalists on Wednesday that he was a man of the organisation and would always function as one.

“Whatever duties the party has assigned to me, I’ll carry them out,” Ghosh said. “I am still an MP of Midnapore. I’ll have to work there as well. It is true that I’ll have to travel more now,” he added.