As Bengal BJP chief moves to Delhi, who will take over faction-ridden state unit?

At a time when internal differences in West Bengal BJP are out in the open, the question of who will take over the faction-ridden state unit has arisen following the appointment of current state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar as the Minister of State (MoS) in the Narendra Modi government.

Following the declaration of results on June 4, both Bishnupur MP Saumitra Khan and former state BJP president Dilip Ghosh took aim at the state leadership, questioning its decisions. Though they did not name him, their target was Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. Former BJP Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta acknowledged there was a “lot of bad blood” in the state BJP when he posted on X on Monday, praising Suvendu for “rejuvenating” the party in West Bengal.

“There’s a lot of bad blood in the @BJP4Bengal after the polls. It was @narendramodi who created the enthusiasm for the BJP. It was the untiring efforts of @SuvenduWB that energised people on the ground. Without both of them complementing each other, the BJP in Bengal would have been worse off. Of course, there were other shortcomings,” Dasgupta wrote.

Majumdar, who was appointed MoS in the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region on Monday, expressed his desire to leave the post. “I definitely won’t lose my focus on party affairs in state politics. I have played my part over the years. The party did well in north Bengal and in some Assembly segments in Kolkata. Once a replacement is appointed, I will leave my post as state BJP president,” he told reporters on Sunday after coming to know about his induction into the Union Council of Ministers.

The BJP appointed Majumdar, who eked out a narrow win in Balurghat by 10,386 votes, its state