New Delhi: Ahead of the crucial assembly elections scheduled for next year in West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has appointed senior party leader Samik Bhattacharya as the new chief of its West Bengal unit.
Bhattacharya (61) is a Rajya Sabha member and was elected unopposed as no other candidate had filed their nomination for the post. A senior BJP leader from West Bengal described him as a grassroot worker who has been working “tirelessly” for years.
“There are several factors that contributed to the party naming him as the state president at a time when the West Bengal unit has been faction-ridden and is almost facing a crisis. He is among the few leaders who swear by party ideology and has never revolted against the party even at times when he was ignored as the party overlooked him to give opportunities to others,” said a senior BJP leader, also pointing out that he has served as the state general secretary, vice-president, and chief spokesperson of the BJP in the past.
Bhattacharya’s ascent is being viewed as a reward for decades of hard work, loyalty to the party and remaining firm to the ideology.
Associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological mentor, Bhattacharya won his first assembly election in 2014 and was the only BJP MLA in the assembly governed by the Trinamool Congress. He had won the Basirhat South assembly seat on a BJP ticket in a bypoll.
Speaking to ThePrint, Ritesh Tiwari, former vice-president of the West Bengal BJP, said the party has always given preference to grassroot leaders and Bhattacharya fits in well with that.
“He has been connected with the party for decades. His association with the RSS is well-known and he is a person for whom nation and ideology comes first. Woh shakha se nikal kar aaye hue leader hain (he has come up from the shakha). TMC had tried to lure him at one point offering him a ministership but he rejected it outright. He is committed to the party,” he said.
His political journey started in the mid-1970s when he first attended RSS shakhas in Howrah’s Mandirtala area and later joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the RSS.
Recounting an old incident, Tiwari said, during the 1989 Lok Sabha elections he got to know the “real Bhattacharya”.
“Our candidate was the late Shantilal Jain. During that campaign, Samik-da gave a speech in a public meeting in Tala of North Kolkata. In his speech which was full of examples from world history he talked about how from Romania, Hungary and Poland the communist rule was ending and his speech left the audience spell-bound due to the manner in which he narrated it. Even today, his speeches have the same magic and he can connect with people easily,” he added.
Another party leader highlighted how the BJP leader has been “a committed worker and has been attached to the party since the beginning when we barely had an organisational presence. He has witnessed the party grow brick-by-brick”.
Explaining the rationale behind the move, a party functionary said that while the former state president Dilip Ghosh failed to take everyone along, BJP MP and outgoing state president Sukanta Majumdar was unable to handle the state unit properly.
“As he is a grassroot leader, people know him well and hence party workers right from district level to seniors will find it easy to communicate with him,” said a senior party leader.
As the BJP looks to strengthen its position in the state, a senior party leader said being a good orator and someone who has a good rapport with the Bengal intelligentsia, he will help the party reach out to people ahead of the elections.
“Unki Bengali intelligentsia mai bauhat achi pakad hai (he has a good hold over the Bengali intelligentsia). He can be called the intelligent, soft, sober and liberal face of the BJP and the party will benefit from it as he will be able to reach out to them and put forward the party’s stand, something which we have been unable to do so far,” said another leader.
A party source added that the fact that the party decided to repose its faith in Bhattacharya also shows the imprint of the RSS in the decision-making.
Even as the BJP had been demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the wake of the RG Kar rape case, the party ended up winning all six assembly constituencies in the state that went into bypolls last year.
The party is hopeful that Bhattacharya will be able to put the house in order and take everyone along keeping the 2026 assembly elections in mind.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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