Kolkata: Only a day after facing the heat of temporary expulsion from the party, former state BJP vice-president, Jaiprakash Majumdar fired salvos against the central and state leadership of the party. In this effort, he also echoed the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee’s outsider theory against the saffron camp in the 2021 state assembly elections. He also praised the chief minister while addressing the media persons here on Tuesday.
Majumdar said that after the remarkable results of BJP from West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a section of the BJP leaders both at the central and the state level became worried about the old-timer leaders who steered the party towards that remarkable performance.
“Before the 2021 elections, there was an attempt to steer the BJP in the state by bringing in leaders from other states. Even in a meeting the national general secretary (administration) openly said that they will steer BJP in the state without the party old-timers in the state. The opposition parties took this advantage in framing the ‘outsider’ theory which was found acceptable to the voters in general,” he said.
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He also said that even after the poll results were announced the state BJP leadership concentrated more on the Calcutta High Court to seek justice for the tortured workers instead of hitting the streets on these issues and on this point he praised Mamata Banerjee for her prolonged struggle against the Left Front and the CPI(M).
“Mamata Banerjee fought a prolonged battle against CPI(M) and she fought this battle from the streets and did not depend on court to pursue her struggle. That is the politics of West Bengal and because of her prolonged struggles she has now become an acceptable political face nationally,” Majumdar said.
He also said that after the 2021 elections there was no concrete attempt to review the reasons for the debacle. “After the new state president was elected he reshuffled the district committees. The majority of the new district presidents are not even known to the leaders of the same district. There is not a single Muslim face in any committee. Even the head of the BJP’s state minority cell is a Christian. The state general secretary (organization) has just two years of experience. The current state president has just two and half years of experience,” Majumdar said.
He also said that since now the Union Minister of State for Shipping, Santanu Thakur has opened his mouth in support of the demands of the Matua community, the present state committee has become scared. “So out of that fear factor they have expelled me and Ritesh Tiwari, so that the rebel leaders cannot unite,” he said.
Speaking on the occasion, Tiwari questioned the justification of expulsion within hours of the show-case notice which did not mention any specific time frame for the reply. On Monday itself, he threw a challenge that those who have expelled him will apologize to him one day and plea him to return to the party. He also alleged that some leaders from the state unit of the BJP had taken personal favours from different ministers of the state government.
