KOLKATA: Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya was on Thursday elected unopposed as the new West Bengal BJP president. His appointment was officially announced during a felicitation programme at Science City, Kolkata.
Bhattacharya, 61, has been associated with the RSS since his school days in 1974.
“Only one nomination was submitted for the post of president of West Bengal and that is Samik Bhattacharya's. I congratulate him,” senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, while handing him the certificate. Prasad was the BJP’s State Election Commissioner for the election of its West Bengal President.
Bhattacharya is the 11th President of the West Bengal BJP and will remain in the post till 2027. He will lead the saffron party into the crucial 2026 Assembly Elections in West Bengal.
After being appointed as West Bengal State BJP President, Bhattacharya said, “Our only aim is to oust the Trinamool from the state. We will fight unitedly to achieve this aim.”
Though he spoke of a "united fight", former West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh was not invited to the programme, fuelling further speculation about his growing distance from the state BJP. Ghosh, widely regarded as the party’s most successful state president, was conspicuously sidelined on Thursday.
Adding to the buzz, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari did not mention Ghosh’s name even once during his address at the event.
The message Suvendu Adhikari delivered at the programme, with a clear focus on vote bank politics, was noticeably different from the approach of newly-elected state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya.
“BJP's fight is not against the minorities of this state. We actually want to take away the stones from the boys belonging to the minorities who are walking around with stones and give them books. We want to take away their swords and give them pens. We want the Durga Puja procession and the Muharram procession to go side by side at the same time, without any clashes. Bengal must be protected,” Bhattacharya said.
Regarding the West Bengal BJP's new-old conflict, he said, “The old members of the party should remember that the party will not grow if the new members do not come. Everyone is needed in the party. We cannot bring people just like ordering idols from Kumartuli. And the new members should remember that the old members held the party flag high despite knowing that they were certain of defeat. They ensured the lamp was being illuminated at the time of crisis.”