This Article is From Sep 21, 2021

Sukanta Majumdar, First-Time MP, Is New Bengal BJP Chief

Sukanta Majumdar, a professor of Botany, takes over as Bengal BJP chief amid a host of leaders pink-slipping the party and switching over to the ruling Trinamool Congress - with MP and former Union Minister Babul Supriyo the latest to switch camps.

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India News Edited by

Sukanta Majumdar, 41, is an MP from Balurghat

New Delhi:

Sukanta Majumdar, a first-time MP, has been appointed chief of the BJP in Bengal, replacing Dilip Ghosh, who has been given a role in Delhi in the middle of an exodus by party leaders to the ruling Trinamool.

"The party has given such a big responsibility to an ordinary worker like me. This can only be possible in BJP. No other political party can take such a step. I will try to live up to the expectations of the high command and to the trust they have shown in me," Mr Majumdar was quoted saying by news agency ANI after he was named the top BJP leader in the state.

The sources in the BJP said that the top brass decided to appoint Sukanta Majumdar keeping in view the party's good show in north Bengal.

With Leader of the Opposition in Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, hailing from south Bengal, and Mr Majumdar from north, the BJP seems to be making efforts to reinvigorate the organisation in the state after the assembly poll debacle.

A professor of Botany, Sukanta Majumdar comes into the hot seat amid a host of leaders pink-slipping the party and switching over to the ruling Trinamool Congress - with MP and former Union Minister Babul Supriyo the latest to switch camps.

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"A political party is like a water body. There is an inflow and outflow of the workers. People joined us with a motive and left us as their motive was not fulfilled. The people who have faith in the ideology of the BJP will never leave the party," said the Balurghat MP.

"BJP is a big party and there can be differences in opinions. There are no differences in ideology. The differences in opinions can be resolved," the 41-year-old leader added.

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Sukanta Majumdar had formerly served as a member of the BJP's state election management team. He has also served as the party's co-convenor for the Uttar Banga Zone.

Mr Majumdar, who rose through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the BJP's ideological fountainhead - faces  a tough political test as the BJP has been delivered a series of political lessons lately by the Trinamool.

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The BJP, under Dilip Ghosh, who once publicly declared that there are "traces of gold" in cow milk, found its breakthrough moment in 2019 when it bagged 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

However, in the state polls in 2021, the BJP failed to achieve its much-publicised target of 200 seats, but managed to increase its tally from three to 77.

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