Dec. 11: Dilip Ghosh, an RSS pracharak who became a BJP general secretary this January, was today named the chief of the party's Bengal unit, replacing Rahul Sinha who has been made a national secretary.
Ghosh has worked as a Sangh whole-timer in south Bengal and the Andaman and Nicobar islands. He said he was aware of the uphill task before him. "I know the 2016 election is tough, but that is why I am here," Ghosh, 53, said at the BJP office.
"The leadership has bestowed a great responsibility on me," he said.
Ghosh was "loaned" to the BJP by the Sangh a year and a half ago.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, the general secretary in charge of Bengal, said Sinha with his "long experience" in state politics and Ghosh would together "strengthen the party organisation".
Ghosh was born in a farmer's family in West Midnapore and graduated from Calcutta University. He was elevated as an RSS pracharak in 1984 after working as an activist for eight years. "I was assigned the work of motivating youths in remote villages of South and North 24-Parganas in our daily morning shakhas. Later, I was sent to the Andaman and Nicobar islands for sometime," he said.
Ghosh said he was also appointed a general secretary of the Hindu Jagaran Manch, an RSS outfit, to oversee its organisational activities in ten south Bengal districts. He became a BJP general secretary on January 20 this year.
"I believe this long experience to reach out to party activists and people across the state would stand me in good stead as the party's captain," Ghosh said today.
When Ghosh arrived at the party's headquarters in central Calcutta around 5.30pm from Tamluk, petals were showered on him and aabir smeared, amid slogans of "Bharat Mata ki jay".
Predecessor Sinha was not in the BJP office, nor did he take calls.
Sinha took over as the state BJP chief from former Union junior minister and MP Satyabrata Mukherjee in September 2009.
After Sinha's stay in the post for six years - the second term ended in September - there were murmurs in the BJP in favour of a leadership change.
Some leaders in the state BJP said the organisation was in a disarray, which led to the party's defeat in successive elections after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had bagged 17 per cent votes riding the Modi wave. It raised expectations in the organisation that the party could emerge as the principal Opposition force in Bengal. But subsequent local elections proved that the BJP's organisational might wasn't good enough. The party secured 9 per cent votes in 92 civic bodies in April 2015. It did a little better in the Asansol civic elections, managing to get 18.5 per cent of the votes, but managed to corner only 8.6 per cent votes in Bidhannagar and 6.4 per cent in the Bally municipal polls in October.
