KOLKATA: Continuing protests over BJP’s candidate list for the third and fourth phases of the Bengal assembly polls have prompted the party brass to summon Bengal leaders to Delhi for a meeting on Wednesday to make sure that such problems do not recur.
BJP leader and Union home minister Amit Shah gave a piece of his mind in an “unscheduled meeting” with Bengal leaders at a Kolkata hotel late on Monday.
The meeting, attended by BJP president JP Nadda, continued till 3.30 am and resumed again on Tuesday morning. Shah, taking a look at the ground reports, wanted netas to take the BJP district leadership into confidence before finalizing the lists.
Protests in front of BJP’s Hastings office in Kolkata went unabated all through the day with angry BJP supporters from Hooghly, South 24 Parganas and Howrah demanding change of “corrupt” candidates, particularly those who recently joined from Trinamool. The crowd got restive at one time, prompting police to resort to a mild lathi-charge. Police also arrested 8 BJP supporters.
Bengal BJP minder Kailash Vijayvargiya, party state president Dilip Ghosh, BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy and two central leaders in charge of Bengal, Shivaprakash and Arvind Menon, will attend Wednesday’s meeting.
A section of leaders told Shah that the old guard was not happy with the new inductees from TMC getting poll tickets. They referred to former Trinamool minister, 88-year old Rabindranath Bhattacharya getting the ticket from Hooghly’s Singur.
Shah asked Bengal leaders to build a “consensus” before sending their recommendations to the headquarters in Delhi. Shah also asked questions about a thin turnout at the meetings.
On Tuesday, the discontent among the Hooghly BJP ranks spread to Goghat.
(Inputs from Falguni Banerjee, Monotosh Chakraborty, Rupak Banerjee)