Key Points

While the state unit of the BJP announced the names of presidents for 38 organisational districts in the state quite some time ago, the announcement of the names for four districts, namely Darjeeling in Darjeeling district, Barrackpore and Bongaon in North 24 Parganas district, and Ghatal in West Midnapore district, was pending.

However, on Wednesday afternoon, the party’s state president in West Bengal and Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya announced the names of the presidents for these four organisational districts.

The four names that were announced by Bhattacharya on Wednesday are Sanjeev Tamang for Darjeeling, Tapas Ghosh for Barrackpore, Bikash Ghosh for Bongaon, and Tanmay Das for Ghatal.

While Tanmay Das is the only one to be re-nominated for the chair, the other three named on Wednesday were new faces.

A state committee insider said that in case of the appointment of the president for the Darjeeling organisational district, the state leadership has accepted the recommendation of the party Lok Sabha member from Darjeeling constituency, Raju Bista.

“Political equations in the hills are different from those of the plains, and hence the state leadership thought it wise to honour the recommendation of the local MP on this count. Although the Darjeeling Lok Sabha has a combination of both hills and the plains, the voters in the hills are the deciding factor than their counterparts in the plains,” the state committee member said.

Similarly, in the case of Bangaon, where the decision makers are the voters coming from the Matua community, recommendations of the local party Lok Sabha member and the Union Minister of State, Santanu Thakur, who also comes from the same community, had been given maximum weightage.

In the case of Barrackpore, the choice was made on the basis of unanimous decisions from heavyweight party leaders from that Lok Sabha area. In the case of Ghatal, the old face has been retained because of his dedicated organisational activities, the state committee insider said.

- IANS