Suvendu Adhikari skips key BJP meet after debacle in Bengal civic polls; TMC take a swipe

Bharatiya Janata Party legislator and leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Suvendu Adhikari skipped the BJP’s organisational meeting in Kolkata on Saturday.

The incident has raised eyebrows as it was the BJP’s first organisational meeting after the party’s debacle in the recently held civic elections in West Bengal. The party failed to win a single municipality out of the 108 civic bodies where elections were held.

Even though Adhikari didn’t respond to calls, a senior BJP leader said that Adhikari had informed the state leadership late on Friday night that he would not be able to attend Saturday’s meeting. Adhikari was supposed to address the meet.

“Adhikari was absent. I don’t know why. He might have informed the state leadership. I went there because I was invited,” said Dilip Ghosh, national vice president of BJP.

What came as a major embarrassment in the civic polls is that not only did the BJP fail to secure the Contai municipality in East Midnapore, the party also lost in the ward where Adhikari stays. The civic body was a stronghold of the Adhikari family.

Among the prominent leaders who attended the meet were Ghosh, Amit Malviya who heads the party’s IT wing, Sukanta Majumdar, the party’s head in West Bengal, Rahul Sinha, a veteran party leader among others.

The TMC took a dig saying that the BJP is now being led by a “gang of failures”.

“I have heard that one of the members of the ‘gang of failures’ which is running the party didn’t attend the meeting. It is natural. He lost in his own ward. I also heard that one BJP MP has said that the party should go for introspection after the humiliating defeat in civic polls. The present state leaders should take some private tuition from the MP,” said Kunal Ghosh, TMC spokesperson.