Factional clash erupts within BJP

Kolkata: A clash broke out between two factions within the BJP in front of the party’s Asansol Lok Sabha candidate SS Ahluwalia. The incident happened when a party workers’ meeting of the saffron camp was going on at a Barabani party office on Thursday morning. Ahluwalia called the workers’ meeting to chalk out strategies on how to fight elections. The clash broke out between the old and new party leaders.

The old party leaders alleged that the election campaign is going on with the new party leaders. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, infighting appears to be brewing in the state BJP with a faction within the party in the name of “BJP Bachao Mancha” (platform to save BJP) openly asking its supporters to cast their votes in favour of “NOTA” as it alleged that the names of the BJP’s original leaders were not announced as candidates.

BJP Bachao Mancha held a meeting in the city recently where they said that BJP’s candidates this year are worse than those who had contested in the 2021 Assembly elections. They alleged that old BJP leaders who had played a key role within the party have been sidelined. Infighting brewed in the state BJP over the formation of district-wise election committee while the newly constituted Lok Sabha election committee had apparently excluded Dilip Ghosh, paving the way for speculations.

Meanwhile, the BJP announced the name of two-term Bengal MP SS Ahluwalia as its candidate from Asansol. Ahluwalia will face Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) sitting MP actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha. Ahluwalia was the MP of Darjeeling in 2014 and won the Burdwan-Durgapur seat in 2019. He replaces Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh, who earlier withdrew his candidature after flak from the TMC for his “misogynistic songs”

Asansol, with at least 40 per cent Hindi-speaking population, is one of the two seats the BJP won in the state in 2014.