Kolkata: West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh has blamed “campaign policies” decided by the central leadership for the party’s defeat in the assembly elections.
“I think some of our campaign policies were really wrong. We failed to find resonance with the people in some areas. The policies were decided by the top central leaders, but these issues need to be analysed,” said Ghosh in an exclusive interview with ThePrint, hours after the Bengal assembly results were announced Sunday.
The RSS karyakarta-turned-BJP president also mentioned the BJP’s personal attacks against Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “Many people are saying that PM Modi’s Didi-O-Didi comment did not go down well with the people. But we do not know whether that’s true. We need to analyse and introspect, to understand what went wrong.”
The BJP in a high-octane election campaign had made confident claims of victory in this assembly elections. But the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress dealt a heavy blow to the national party in the state, winning 213 of 292 seats in the West Bengal assembly. The BJP managed to win only 77 seats. This is a sharp drop from the party’s victory in 121 assembly segments in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, according to Election Commission of India records.
Ghosh, however, chose to view the result in a different light, comparing the BJP’s present performance to that of the 2016 assembly elections, when it had managed to secure only three seats. “The party has grown 26 times since then,” said Ghosh.
While denying possibilities of the Covid surge, around the sixth phase of the election, resulting in the party’s loss, the BJP state president instead touched upon the poor performance of Trinamool defectors, who had joined the BJP in the run up to the elections.
A senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said that the party leadership at the centre had also neglected Ghosh in favour of Suvendu Adhikari, a former minister in Mamata Banerjee’s government, who had left the Trinamool just months before the elections to join the BJP.
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On defectors and defeat
Ghosh pointed out that in many regions, including Jangalmahal, the BJP had been completely wiped out.
“In West Midnapore, Jhargram and in some other districts we lost winning seats. These things need to be studied,” he said.
Replying to whether the Covid surge that coincided with the sixth phase of polls in the state led to the party’s loss in districts like West Burdwan, Birbhum, Murshidabad and Malda, Ghosh said, “I don’t think Covid is a reason for this loss. We did not win seats in the first, second and third phases either. We lost our stronghold seats [such as West Burdwan and Birbhum].”
Rather, Ghosh dwelled on the poor performance of former Trinamool members who had joined the BJP ahead of the elections, comparing it to the conditions in 2019, when of 18 BJP MPs from Bengal, at least seven were those who had defected from the Trinamool. In comparison, the BJP had given tickets to 148 defectors in this assembly election, and only six of them won their seats.
“In 2019, there were many candidates who defected to our party from Trinamool. They won. Why did the turncoats lose the assembly elections? There has been disgruntlement among old party workers [against the new members]. We are looking into these issues,” said Ghosh.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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