Dilip Ghosh re-elected Bengal BJP chief, to lead party in 2021 polls

Ghosh’s re-election comes days after he courted a controversy for threatening to shoot and kill protesters involved in damaging public property “like in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Karnataka” during the agitation against the new citizenship law.

Hitting out at the opposition, Ghosh said, “There are a few people who are criticising me for my comments. I want to make myself clear that the time has come for the BJP. Earlier, they (parties opposed to the BJP) used to speak and we listened, now we will speak and they will listen.”

Ghosh was appointed to the post in December 2015 for three years. Since then he has been continuing as the state BJP chief after receiving an extension in December 2018, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last years. He has been credited for the meteoric growth of the BJP in West Bengal as the party won 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the last year’s elections, and now he will lead the party’s state unit in the civic polls due in a few months and the crucial 2021 Assembly elections.

An RSS man, Ghosh was brought into the BJP in 2014 and appointed as general secretary of the party’s West Bengal unit. In 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections, Ghosh won from Kharagpur Sadar constituency in West Midnapore district by defeating seven-time Congress MLA Gyan Singh Sohanpal.

In Lok Sabha polls last year, Ghosh won from the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency by a margin of 88,952 votes by defeating Trinamool Congress heavyweight candidate and former Congress leader Manas Bhunia. However, under his leadership, the party failed to retain the Kharagpur Assembly seat in the bypoll held last year, despite him campaigning extensively.

-with ENS