Bengal BJP’s campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be handled by a 15-member election management team, comprising state and central-level leaders. The decision was taken during a meeting here with Union Home minister Amit Shah and the BJP national president JP Nadda on Tuesday afternoon with party functionaries.
The team comprises leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikary, MP and state unit president Sukanta Majumdar, parliamentarians Locket Chatterjee, Dilip Ghosh, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, MLA Agnimitra Paul and state functionaries Rahul Sinha, Amitabha Chakraborti, Jagannath Chattopadhyay, and Dipak Barman.
The BJP’s central leaders Asha Lakra, Amit Malviya, Sunil Bansal, Mangal Pandey and Satish Dhand who have been deputed for Bengal have also been included in the team and will coordinate with the state level leaders.
“They will step in wherever they feel prudent to intervene to derive the best outcome from the poll process. This could be on selection of candidates to the micro-managing the campaign from large public meetings to booth level marches,” said a state BJP leader.
None of the four junior ministers from Bengal in the Narendra Modi government --- Nisith Pramanik, John Barla, Subhas Sarkar and Shantanu Thakur – have been inducted into the team, throwing a question mark over what the party has in store for them in the battle for 2024.
The BJP’s national executive which met in New Delhi last week has already made it clear that in approximately 100 constituencies across the country, the party is likely to change nominees.
Shah had earlier set a target of 35 seats from Bengal out of the 42 in the state. Tuesday’s was the first top-level meeting to sound out the preparations for the Lok Sabha polls in the state.
“Such an exercise has not been carried out yet in any of the states. This shows how far important the BJP considers Bengal,” said a BJP source.
Shah and Nadda arrived in the city late on Monday night for prolonged sessions through Tuesday to discuss the strategy for the upcoming general elections.
“Bengal holds prominence in the scheme of things for the BJP,” said a source.
Though the BJP had returned with 18 seats, the highest ever tally, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, two of its MPs later defected to the Trinamul, bringing the tally down to 16.
A BJP leader said, not too much should be read into the ministers not being included in the election management team. “Right now no decision has been taken on the list of candidates. The election management team will go through the survey reports that are being collated now,” he said.
Ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP had unrolled a 117-member election management team, comprising 31 units, each responsible for a particular aspect of the poll preparation.
Earlier in the day, Shah and Nadda along with Adhikari and others visited the Gurudwara Bara Sikh Sangat in Jorasanko and the Kalighat temple.
Shah and Nadda are scheduled to meet the party’s social media cell members and some “eminent” sympathisers at the National Library, followed by another organisational meeting later in the evening.