In a significant change of strategy, the BJP’s central leadership has instructed its West Bengal unit not to induct a large number of leaders from other parties especially the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
According to state BJP sources, the central leadership has also instructed the state unit not to avoid defection tactics and make clean image the chief criterion of induction in the party.
“The instruction has been given with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” said a senior state BJP leader.
He also said that the development comes after a recent meeting in Delhi. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh urged party president J P Nadda not to give turncoats crucial posts in the BJP soon after they join the party. Ghosh urged Nadda that those turncoats who are not following the party line should be sidelined in the BJP.
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State BJP insiders further revealed that the central leadership has made it clear that there should not be such a crisis over inducting turncoats in the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“The party was in a spot over inducting turncoats ahead of the last Assembly elections. The central leadership wants to avoid such a crisis in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at all costs,” the state BJP leader said.
As to whether the saffron party will stop inducting leaders from other parties in Bengal, state BJP insiders said that it will not just be for the sake of engineering defection in other parties but the only leaders and ground-level workers with a clean image will be inducted.
The BJP inducted a large number of leaders and workers from other parties especially the TMC ahead of the Assembly elections and fielded many of them as candidates. However, the majority of them lost, leaving the party red-faced.
Even after the elections, a section of these leaders has started to criticise the state BJP leadership and some of them even openly urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to allow them to return to the TMC.
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