'Not enough experience,' Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh acknowledges bypoll defeat

Admitting the deficit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, as has been made apparent in the recently conducted bypolls, the party's state president Dilip Ghosh on Saturday said that the lack of sufficient experience made them lose the seats that they had earlier won. This comes as a lament of the bypoll results, where BJP lost in all three seats.

Ghosh on Saturday accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of instilling a fear regarding the National Register of Citizens (NRC) among the Bengal populace. "She (Banerjee) never even mentioned the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) to the people," Dilip Ghosh said, adding, "We will talk to the people and make them realise there is no need for irrational concern. First, the CAB will be implemented, then the NRC. Every Hindu refugee will receive citizenship."

In hindsight, the contest in the Kharagpur constituency was a fight for prestige, since it was the seat vacated by Ghosh himself. However, the BJP lost in that seat, along with other areas which were considered to be part of the saffron fold. According to sources, veteran BJP leader Pradip Pattanayak had once spent a considerable amount of his time building up the party's organisational base in Kharagpur, the lone man manually toiling in his cycle throughout. However, after the BJP gained influence in the state, Pattanayak was sidelined, which caused furore among the saffron party which, sources say, have been clearly split along young and old leadership lines. All that was left was for the Trinamool Congress to capitalise on this opportunity of weakness, sources added.

In this context, the state BJP president has alleged that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) at 27 booths in the Kharagpur constituency were rigged. "Malpractice continued even after 5:30 PM in these booths where even TMC workers impersonated as our agents and actively helped in the rigging practice," Ghosh said.