Bengal BJP's training workshop: Fun, games, hard talk, but rifts intact

A five-star resort, three days of non-stop excitement and a bunch of leaders frolicking like school kids. If party insiders are to be believed, the three-day workshop organised by the BJP for its Bengal unit was “all fuss, no work”.

The purpose of the training workshop that came to an end on Thursday (September 1) was to chart a roadmap for the 2024 electoral battle and to unify the factionalism-riddled party unit, which appears disarrayed ever since its defeat in the 2021 Assembly elections.

Folk games, musical-chairs

To instil a sense of camaraderie among squabbling leaders of the Bengal BJP, various folk games and other fun events like musical-chair were organised for the participants that included BJP’s state unit’s top leaders.

“Recreational activities were arranged in between gruelling training sessions to break the monotony after long lessons on party ideology, vision, action plan and strategy,” said a senior state BJP leader. “The aim was also to bring leaders and workers closer and to bridge differences between the warring leaders,” he added. 

The participating leaders for once put up a show of great unity, setting aside their differences, playing together and cracking jokes.

The party’s national vice president and former Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh showed a few wrestling moves. A party functionary who was asked to grab him from behind was floored with a swift manoeuvre, much to the amusement of those around.

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Such lighter moments, however, failed to hide the serious infighting the BJP is grappling with in the state. The workshop was conspicuous by the absence of several MPs, including Union ministers from the state.

Conspicuous by absence

The notable absentees were Nisith Pramanik, Union Minister of State for Home; John Barla, Minister of State for Minority Affairs; Shantanu Thakur, Junior Minister in the Union Ports, Shipping and Waterways Ministry; and Surendrajeet Singh Ahluwalia, Lok Sabha MP from Durgapur.

Pramanik and Barla’s differences with leaders from the southern part of the state over the division of Bengal are well known in the BJP circle. The two are strong proponents of a separate political and administrative entity for north Bengal districts, a demand vehemently opposed by party leaders from the southern districts.

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Thakur, a prominent Matua leader, is peeved with the party’s central leadership for failing to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The CAA implementation was the main poll promise of the BJP to the state’s influential Matua community ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The delay in fulfilling the poll promise led to the severe erosion of the party’s Matua vote base in the 2021 Assembly elections, much to the concern of community leaders like Thakur.

Ahluwalia has been sidelined by the party and hence remains mostly aloof.

Weak excuses?

BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, however, claimed that the absentee leaders had informed the party about their inability to attend the programme due to prior commitments. Not many, however, were willing to buy the explanation.

“The schedule of the training programme was announced well in advance. What could be more important than the party’s crucial workshop attended by national general secretary BL Santhosh and Bengal in-charge Sunil Bansal?” asked a BJP MLA.

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Many in the party are in favour of issuing show-cause notices to the absentee leaders. Meanwhile, BJP’s national secretary and former MP Anupam Hazra lodged a complaint with party president JP Nadda, stating that he was not invited for the workshop by the state leadership.

Hazra is very vocal against the party affairs in Bengal. Mazumdar said not inviting Hazra could be an oversight. “We had heard that he was not well. Maybe that is why he was not invited. Anyway, I would enquire about it,” said the state president.

Intra-party rift

The rift among leaders was also the highlight of Santhosh’s concluding-day speech. The leader expressed dismay over the number of complaints against fellow party colleagues which he regularly receives from state leaders. He asked the state unit to resolve the differences and not to bother the central leadership with such issues.

“Why would the central leadership need to resolve differences between two state leaders? Sukanata Majumdar and Suvendu Adhikari (leader of the Opposition) are sitting with us. Now, if there is any difference between them, why is the central leadership required to intervene?” he reportedly told the party workers.

That the Bengal BJP is divided in three camps headed by Majumdar, Adhikari and Ghosh is an open secret.

Amid the infighting, the Bengal BJP’s new minder, Bansal, spoke about the roping in of people from other parties for its growth, a strategy that “boomeranged” in the Assembly elections last year. “We had fought the last electoral battle with borrowed soldiers. The result was for everyone to see. Instead of learning from the past mistake, the new in-charge seems to be keen on making the same mistake,” said a BJP old-timer.

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Wary of poaching

Majumdar was also quick to clarify that leaders from other parties would not be welcomed. “Our doors will only be open for grassroot workers from other parties,” he told media persons on the sidelines of the workshop on Thursday.

The clarification means the state leadership continues to be uncomfortable with the central leadership’s growth blueprint. The state BJP old guards, right from the beginning, were opposed to the idea of expanding the party by roping in leaders from other parties. Ignoring their objections, the previous party state in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya had pursued the policy with the obvious backing of the high command in the run-up to the last Assembly elections.

Many like former state president Tathagata Roy had openly blamed the indiscriminate poaching for the party’s 2021 electoral debacle.

This old and new divide in the state unit is also the root cause of factionalism. Unless the crux of the problem is addressed, the old-timers in the party say, training programmes like the one held at the Vedic Village Spa Resort are unlikely to change the party’s fortune in the state.