Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya was on Thursday officially declared the new president of its West Bengal unit, and he will lead the party into the 2026 assembly elections.

Sixty-one-year-old Bhattacharya was elected unopposed, with no other candidate filing nomination for the post by the stipulated deadline of Wednesday afternoon.

The formal announcement came during a felicitation ceremony at Science City here, in the presence of senior BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who handed over the certificate of election to Bhattacharya.

Prasad was the national returning officer for the election of the West Bengal BJP president.

"Only one nomination was submitted for the post of president of West Bengal and that is Samik Bhattacharya's. I congratulate him," Prasad said, handing him the certificate.

Bhattacharya had submitted his nomination papers at the BJP's state headquarters in Salt Lake on Wednesday afternoon, accompanied by outgoing president Sukanta Majumdar and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, Suvendu Adhikari.

Bhattacharya now takes over at a crucial juncture, with the West Bengal assembly elections due in less than a year's time.

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