Dilip Ghosh. File | Photo Credit: PTI
After questioning the rationale behind relocating established leaders like him from winnable constituencies to challenging electoral battlegrounds, senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh on June 8 put out a social media post, sparking speculations of ‘old versus new’ debate in the party’s West Bengal unit.
In a cryptic message, Mr. Ghosh posted on X, “Old is Gold.” Mr. Ghosh had earlier said that it was a mistake by the party to sideline old guards and the poll debacle was waiting to happen as newcomers and inexperienced leaders were calling the shots.
West Bengal election results 2024 highlights: TMC stuns poll pundits, bags 29 seats, BJP wins in 12
BJP’s Lok Sabha tally in the State dipped to 12 in this election from 18 in 2019, when Mr. Ghosh was the BJP State president. The saffron party had targeted to win 30 of the 42 seats this time.
Mr. Ghosh was defeated at the hands of TMC’s Kirti Azad by nearly 1.38 lakh votes in the Bardhaman-Durgapur seat. Mr. Ghosh had earlier said that it was now established that sending him to contest from his old constituency of Medinipur to a fresh one “was a mistake”.
He was relocated from his winning seat of Medinipur to Bardhaman-Durgapur, a seat where the battle against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) was perceptively tough.
Click here for Lok Sabha Election Results 2024
Mr. Ghosh replaced sitting MP S.S. Ahluwalia in Bardhaman-Durgapur. Mr. Ahluwalia, in turn, was moved to Asansol. The party’s sitting MLA from Asansol Dakshin seat, Agnimitra Paul, replaced Mr. Ghosh in Medinipur.
All the three BJP candidates were trounced by their TMC counterparts in the recently concluded elections. On June 7, Mr. Ghosh questioned the choices made by the State BJP leadership, particularly in relocating experienced leaders like him and former Union MoS Debasree Choudhury from their constituencies to unfamiliar ones.
