Since its formation on April 6, 1980, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was not a force worthy of attention in West Bengal for decades. That began to change after Narendra Modi’s rise to power at the Center in 2014.
Despite being the home state of Jana Sangh’s ideologue Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the BJP struggled for political space in Bengal during the 34 years of the Left Government since 1971.
Since those days, a nondescript building on Muralidhar Sen Street in Kolkata that houses the BJP regional headquarters has undergone many changes, except for one constant: his name is Rahul Sinha.
For the past 40 years, since the formation of the BJP, he has been with the saffron party and, apparently, despite some lucrative political offers from others, remained a dedicated soldier for decades.
However, for the first time, Sinha seems unhappy, after the central leadership of the party decided to remove him as national secretary to make way for the defector from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Anupam Hazra. In his political career, Sinha has contested ten assembly polls and Lok Sabha in various bengal seats, although he never won.
In 2014, he fought in the Lok Sabha polls of the North Kolkata constituency against MP Sudip Bandopadhyay and lost. Sinha was the state president of the BJP at the time. In 2016, he fought at the assembly polls from the Jorasanko assembly seat and was defeated again.
Similarly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, his 10th contest, Sinha was once again defeated by Sudip Bandopadhyay from North Kolkata. Despite his ten defeats, he had a position of respect in the match. But this time, considering next year’s crucial Bengal assembly elections, the central leadership of the BJP is unwilling to take risks and has decided to confront the state’s ruling TMC with traitors.
Sinha served as chairman of the BJP’s West Bengal unit from 2012 to 2015 before Dilip Ghosh took office. He led the party during the panchayat elections in 2013 and in the 2014 parliamentary elections he played a crucial role in increasing the party’s share of votes from 1.5% to almost 34% in Bengal.
Speaking exclusively to News18, Sinha said: “I joined the BJP at the time of its formation in 1980. Before that, I joined the RSS as ‘Bal Sevak’ (his uncle took him to a shakha when he was a teenager) and after that I worked hard for the BJP. I never crossed the party line. I attended my first political conference when I was in Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1978 and Kalraj Mishra was the president. Later, I decided to go back to RSS, but again in 1980, I joined the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (its president was Satya Deo Singh) and attended meetings with Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji and Lal Krishna Advani ji. I have been with the BJP since those days and yesterday what happened was very regrettable. It was a sad day for me because I was replaced by Anupam Hazra. “
Reclaiming his role in the rise of the BJP in Bengal, he said: “When I took over the state BJP, the percentage of votes was 1.5 percent. Many people said that I was crazy and that is why they gave me the position of state president of the BJP, since it was difficult to survive in those days under the government of the left. Despite the obstacles, I accepted the challenge and when I stepped down as party chairman (in 2015), the BJP’s share of the vote was 34%. After 2015, there was an increase of only 6 percent (approximately) in the percentage of votes. It was thanks to my effort to increase the vote share in Bengal that leaders like Shamik Bhattacharyya, Babul Supriyo were victorious. Unfortunately, after 40 years of dedicated service, I have to step aside because a leader from the Trinamool Congress is coming. It is the most regrettable chapter of my political journey. It’s not that I haven’t had a better chance, but I’m not a greedy person. My ideology is more important to me than a chair. I never crossed the party line and I never cheated on anyone. I was not involved in any scam, and despite that, everything that happened to me was very unfortunate. “
After the party’s decision came, Sinha, in a video message (in both Hindi and Bengali), said: “For 40 years I have served the BJP as a soldier. I have to step aside because a leader from Congress is coming. from Trinamool. It can’t be anything more unfortunate than this reward for serving the BJP since I was born. I don’t want to comment much about it. I don’t want to judge (if it’s right or wrong). In the next 10-12 days, I will decide my future course of action “.
Anupam Hazra, who replaced Sinha, lost to TMC’s Mimi Chakraborty in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Mimi is a popular actress, singer, and politician. She was listed as the ‘most desirable woman’ in 2016 at an event organized by a media house. In 2019, she joined politics and competed from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency as a TMC candidate. She recorded a landslide victory over Hazra by 2.95,239 votes.
In addition to Sinha, Ram Madhav, P Muralidhar Rao, Saroj Pandey and Anil Jain have been replaced by the BJP with new faces. However, strong leaders were retained, including Bhupender Yadav, Arun Singh, and Kailash Vijayvargiya.
Taking into account the West Bengal assembly elections next year, the party has awarded Mukul Roy the post of national vice president. Once a trusted aide to Mamata Banerjee, Roy recently made the news amid reports of his differences with the state leadership of the BJP.
Commenting on the marginalization of Rahul Sinha and the elevation of leaders such as Mukul Roy and Anupam Hazra, the top TMC leader, Colonel Diptanshu Choudhury (retd), said: “This is an internal BJP matter and I will not comment on this. But those who were elevated cannot bring candy for the BJP. People in Bengal are still with Mamata Banerjee and once again we will form the government in Bengal in 2021 ”.
Policy expert Kapil Thakur feels that the elevation of former TMC leaders in the BJP is a message to others in Trinamool to join the saffron party ahead of the elections.
“Existing leaders in the state BJP do not have the charisma to challenge TMC leadership at the district level. They don’t even have good leaders to compete in the 294 seats in the assembly, “he said.” The central leadership of the BJP understood that if they want to defeat Mamata Banerjee, they first have to break the TMC. With the elevation of Mukul Roy and Anupam Hazra, they want to send a message that if someone from TMC joins them, they will be rewarded. “
.
