BJP national president Nitin Nabin will meet the party’s state leadership on Tuesday to assess election preparedness amid growing discontent within the ranks over candidate selection for many seats.
The BJP has since the publication of the second list of 111 candidates witnessed protests by party workers, who claim some of the nominations would play into Trinamool’s hands.
Protests, public or private, have been reported from Alipurduar to Hooghly and from North 24-Parganas to Calcutta. Party workers from at least half-a-dozen constituencies, including some from Calcutta, have visited the state BJP office in Salt Lake to express their unhappiness.
Some BJP workers from Hingalganj have opposed the candidature of Rekha Patra, the face of the 2024 Sandeshkhali agitation against alleged land grab and sexual assault by local Trinamool leaders and their associates.
A senior BJP leader underlined that the first list of 144 candidates had provoked no agitations. The party is yet to announce 39 candidates, with sources attributing the delay to the leadership’s efforts to avoid further discontent.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya has made it clear that the party’s decision on candidates is final, while acknowledging that the agitations at the state unit office and elsewhere were unexpected.
“The party will look into these agitations,” he said, adding that they owed to the party workers’ emotions.
The BJP’s assessment of its defeat in the 2021 Assembly elections had identified incorrect candidate selection at several seats. The party had therefore prioritised candidate selection over the past six months.
A Delhi-based agency conducted a confidential survey on probable candidates, assessing public opinion, leadership profiles, winnability and internal party dynamics. A source said a second team too had conducted a similar survey.
A senior BJP leader said that, apart from the surveys, the party collected recommendations from district and organisational units to understand the local leaderships’ preferences.
Eventually, at least three names for each constituency were forwarded to the central leadership.
In 2021, the party had inducted several prominent politicians from Trinamool and hastily handed them tickets, disappointing the old faithful who feared this would change the party’s character and portray it as Trinamool’s “B-team”.
To avert a repeat, the central and state leaderships had this time formed a committee under state general secretary Locket Chatterjee to decide on any inductions.
“The first condition was that the person should not be a known TMC face who is disgruntled or sidelined, or someone with a background of corruption. The party focused on inducting grassroots workers rather than leaders,” a BJP source said.
A party leader said: “The most unfortunate part is that despite multiple measures to prevent unproductive issues like discontent over candidates, it has still occurred.”
Political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said the discontent resulted from the imposition of candidates in many seats by the RSS, bypassing grassroots organisers who had worked throughout the year.
“This time, the RSS parachuted in many candidates whom the local leadership did not support since they were disconnected from the organisation,” Chakraborty said.
“While the party has generally focused on organisational faces, most of the instances of displeasure stem from such impositions.”
An RSS leader, however, said the organisation had no involvement in politics or candidate selection, which was entirely the BJP’s prerogative.
A senior BJP leader from Delhi dismissed the possible impact of the discontent, claiming it was a natural concomitant to the increase in the BJP’s chances of forming the government.
“These are petty agitations and will have no impact on the election results. Similar incidents have occurred in Trinamool,” he said.
“Such issues arise in parties like the BJP and Trinamool because their supporters believe they have a chance to come to power. This does not happen in the Congress or the Left as they are aware of their limited prospects.”