KOLKATA: Bengal BJP has prepared its internal report on the reasons behind the whitewash in the Assembly bypolls and held three reasons responsible for the defeat.
The NRC though, does not feature among the three reasons.
In the report, factionalism was identified as the main reason with two other causes being —overconfidence resulted by the party’s impressive performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and failure to counter Trinamool’s intensive poll campaign. The report will be submitted to BJP’s national leadership in Delhi.
Elaborating the reasons that might have triggered the debacle in the by-elections, BJP’s state president Dilip Ghosh had said the party’s Bengal unit failed to take voters into confidence on National Register of Citizens issue.
The state leadership assigned three general secretaries to dig deep and identify the factors that had triggered the results after Union Home minister Amit Shah sought a report.
“The Trinamool took the advantage of our internal conflict over the issue of candidate selection in Kharagpur (Sadar) constituency.
"They had drawn up a battle-line accordingly. The ruling party targeted the 12,000 odd employees of the railway’s workshop and caused a sharp dent on our vote-bank and a major chunk of the railway workers, who supported us in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections shifted their allegiance to the Trinamool,’’ said a BJP leader quoting the report.
Another BJP general secretary Raju Banerjee, who was assigned for Kaliaganj constituency, held the party’s candidate attitude responsibly.
“Our candidate was confident about his victory in the wake of our performance in the LS polls bagging seven seats out of eight in north Bengal region. He left many pockets in the constituency untouched,’’ said the leader.