BJP answers its dissidents with thrashings, expulsions

For Sinha, whom the dissenters had gheraoed a day before as a sign of protest, the attack on the protesters had, in a way, become inevitable and was justified.

“We had tolerated enough. I am not denying our party workers beat them up. These people have gone out of control.

From 11 am to 5 pm, they (party dissidents) kept on making slanderous remarks in front of the party office, trying the patience of the workers. After six hours, they had run out of patience. What else would they have done? They were not wearing bangles,” Sinha said at a pre-election press interaction on Wednesday.

THREE SUSPENDED

Clarifying the party’s stand on Jaiswal, whose nomination for Ward 38 the leadership cancelled after initially announcing it, Sinha said: “We learnt that he (Jaiswal) had been booked on charges of extortion and thus cancelled his nomination and nominated Madan Lal Gupta.”

Sinha confirmed that as part of its disciplinary action, the party has suspended three leaders — Jaiswal, Md Ali and Manab Sharma. On the crowd of protesters, Sinha alleged it had members from other parties as well who had gathered to cause trouble. “Among the 17-18 people who had gathered outside the party office yesterday, barring three or four, all were members of CPM and TMC. We have seen the video footage,” he claimed.

BAND OF DISSIDENTS

Over 100 supporters from South-24 Parganas, led by Jayanta Basu, a senior district leader, expressed their discontent and levelled allegations of corruption in the process of allotment of tickets.

“Many of the candidates chosen for civic bodies in our district have no political relevance. The district’s recommendations were ignored and candidates were nominated upon paying up money. Those who have been working for the party for years have been denied a ticket and newcomers, especially from other parties, have been given priority,” Basu alleged.

Ali burnt Sinha’s effigy near Topsia while criticising the state leadership for allotting election tickets in return for financial gains.

Observer of South-24 Parganas (West), Satyapriya Chakraborty, on the other hand, claimed that Basu has been suspended from the party. “His intention was not to protest against any candidate or allotment of seats. He has been suspended for his illegal and anti-party activities. He had gone there with some of his supporters to convince the state leadership to cancel his suspension. But when he failed, he cooked up the new story looking at the situation there,” said Chakraborty, adding that candidates at Joynagar, Baruipur, Diamond Harbour, Maheshtala, Rajpur-Sonarpur had been pitched with no problem.

Similar protests were staged at Siliguri and Kharagpur as well. Krishna Bhattacharya, observer, East Midnapore, admitted there had been some trouble in Wards 14 and 15. “There are several aspirants in every ward since the party has grown to a commendable size and some problems and misunderstandings like these are inevitable,” she said.

CANDIDATE-LESS WARD

Adding to the party’s embarrassment is the failure to pitch any candidate from Ward 62. Shaheen Jaffrey, whom the party had declared as the candidate, withdrew her nomination, and the party’s next choice, Sk Mousumim, could not file her documents on time. Sinha blamed poor organisational structure in the ward for the failure to nominate any candidate.

Amid reports that the party will send a five-member team comprising its state leaders to Delhi on Thursday, Sinha refuted speculations that it was because they had been summoned by the Central leadership, which, reportedly, is “not happy” with the recent developments in the state unit. “The team is visiting to discuss the party’s preparations regarding the Assembly elections due next year. We had a meeting with (BJP national president) Amit Shah and now there will be a second round of talks with Nirmala Sitharaman (Commerce and Industry Minister),” he said.

RSS unhappy

Meanwhile, the RSS has expressed its unhappiness at the show of indiscipline by state BJP members, which, it says, is sending out a wrong message.

RSS pracharak in the state Bidyut Mukherjee said that indiscipline and infighting were “unacceptable” and felt that the party should take immediate steps to nip the unrest.

“Whatever is happening is not at all acceptable. This is sending out a wrong message to the masses. We feel that the state BJP should take steps to bring in discipline in the party organisation. They should take steps to screen the new entrants,” he said.

According to an RSS functionary, who did not wish to be named, the RSS was not happy with the way Bengal BJP was functioning, especially the resignation of Birbhum BJP district president Dudh Kumar Mondal, who was known to be close to the RSS leadership.