'Served for 40 Yrs & Got Ousted?' Not Part of Team Nadda, Bengal Leader Rahul Sinha Hints at Rebellion

The organisational restructuring of the BJPs central unit on Saturday sparked discontent in its Bengal unit as senior leader Rahul Sinha, who was dropped as the national secretary, said that this is the “reward” he got for his dedicated service to the party for 40 long years.

In a major overhaul within the ranks of Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda on Saturday shuffled some top posts with a few names being dropped and few faces being introduced from states where the party is trying to develop the leadership.

Apparently hinting at newly appointed office-bearers Mukul Roy and Anupam Hazra, turncoats from the ruling Trinamool Congress, the two-term former state president claimed that he has been dropped to pave way for TMC leaders who have joined the saffron party.

“For the last 40 years, I have been associated with the party. Today, I have been rewarded by the party, which decided to drop me to pave way for leaders who have joined from the TMC,” Sinha said in a video message.

“I will wait for 10-12 days before announcing my next line of action,” he said, hinting at rebellion.

The BJP has made deep inroads in West Bengal and emerged as the main opposition against the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) by pushing the Congress and Left Front to an ‘insignificant position’. The latter parties now need to prevent the split of anti-TMC and anti-BJP votes in state’s politics to re-secure their positions as key challengers before Mamata Banerjee ahead of 2021 assembly polls.

Sinha, after serving two back-to-back terms as the state BJP president, was appointed as a national secretary of the saffron party in 2015. Announcing a new team of the party’s national office-bearers, the BJP leadership named Mukul Roy as a vice-president, and Anupam Hazra, a former TMC MP who joined the saffron party in March 2019, as a secretary.

Roy, once considered the number two in the TMC, had switched over to the BJP in 2017 following differences with party supremo Mamata Banerjee. Hazra was a young Trinamool lawmaker who had his allegiance to Mukul Roy. After Roy’s exit from the party, Hazra has been in touch with Roy. In March last year, he along with Congress’ Dulal Chandra and CPM’s Khagen Murmu joined the saffron party in Delhi.

When contacted, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said that newcomers may have been included in the restructured team, but that doesn’t mean old-timers were sidelined. “The party has taken a decision. I have nothing to say in this regard. But I think this is a misplaced idea that old-timers have been dropped. Maybe they will be accommodated in some other way,” he said. Ghosh said that he is yet to speak to Sinha on this issue.

With West Bengal set to go to the polls next year, the elevation of Roy and Hazra clearly hasn’t gone down well with Sinha. Now, it remains to be seen whether the central BJP reaches out to him or waits for his “next step”.

(With inputs from IANS and PTI)