After flocking in droves to a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union home minister Amit Shah and making a beeline for the podium, it seems the good times are over for these BJP leaders of West Bengal. No longer can they afford to be conspicuous by their absence at the house of a slain party activist or a vandalised saffron camp unit, post a directive from BJP’s central observer for West Bengal, Bhupendra Yadav.
And it has not escaped Yadav’s notice that these worthies
make their presence felt in only in talk shows organised by different television news channels. In a matter of minutes they become the faces of the party despite maintaining their distance from the heat and dust which is integral to the existence of a grassroot organiser.
Election results in West Bengal speaks volumes for this disconnect. If the election campaigns in the state saw Prime Minister Modi and Union home minister Shah turning themselves into almost “daily passengers” and shooting up the number of BJP legislators, their departure is marked by hardly a ripple in the political scenario of the state.
The BJP has certainly emerged as the principal Opposition party in the West Bengal Assembly. For the first time since independence, it has reduced the number of Left and Congress leguslators to zero.
A slump in the efforts of the state BJP has been noticed thereafter. Of course, it has organised successive walkouts in the state Assembly.
But these differences between the Opposition and Treasury benches could not be turned into people’s agitation. Agitations in Assembly turned out to be photo shoot opportunities but the absence of many legislators was marked in burning causes like the alleged rape and murder of a woman doctor in RG Kar hospital.
Yadav, an observer for this state from national BJP leadership has cottoned onto this habit of some leaders staying away from the scene of action. He has also marked that there is no trace
of the ivory tower existence of these leaders when they analyse the pros and cons of an incident at the talk show studios.
Naturally they send wrong signals to the dedicated activists. A detrimental effect on the morale of the grassroot worker is obvious.
It is no secret that the West Bengal unit of BJP’s electoral success is based on the crutches of the charisma of the national leaders. Once they are not around the party falls on its face.
It has bitten dust in the last municipal elections in Kolkata and several civic bodies. It has not tasted success in any one of the by-elections post 2021 Assembly polls.
But that has not been a deterrent to these BJP leaders holding forth in the talk shows. It is not of any concern to them that they have cut themselves off from grassroot workers.
Yadav’s message to these leaders has been clear and curt. “Leave the airconditioned and visit the villages’ he said.
Summoning these “experts” of the saffron camp, Yadav has delivered his message on their face. The BJP office in Salt Lake had been venue of this “hard talk session.”
He also pointed out a flaw in the view of the panelists during the talk shows. Without mincing words, Yadav told them that the sorrow and sacrifice of the grassroot BJP workers do not find any reflection in the words of the panelists in the news channel studios.
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The panelists may appear to represent the saffron camp. But their words sound hollow as it does not carry the travails of the activists and BJP happens to be a cadre based party.
Every ‘panelist” , Yadav said must emerge from airconditioned comfort and visit the villages. He is to spend at least two nights at an activist’s residence and visit the rural populace and bring back a factual state of affairs of the villages.
Yadav’s words have not been welcome to the “panelist audience”. Though they have little choice, their state of mind is pointer to the BJP’s organisational weakness in West Bengal.
The media cell of the party will decide on the persons who will make a trip to the countryside. And such trips to patch up organisational lapses will begin after Kali puja.
More shortcomings of BJP’s West Bengal unit have come to the fore. Unable to build a sustained agitation of its own on north Bengal floods and Durgapur gang rape, it had to depend on its party units in Delhi, Assam and Odisha.
While Delhi and Assam units sent large quantity of flood relief material to North Bengal, the Odisha unit played a significant role in keeping the Durgapur issue alive as the victim was from Odisha. The situation has boiled down to a huge credibility gap for the West Bengal unit before 2026 Assembly elections.
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The organisational weakness of the BJP is surprising in north Bengal given the number of seats it won in 2021 and 2025 elections. It failed to take up the Durgapur issue strongly, party insiders felt.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s successive visits to the flood hit areas where BJP leaders were heckled made things worse for the state saffron unit. Several BJP insiders feel that Yadav has too little time to turn the party organisation trim and fit before 2026 elections.
