Rift in Bengal BJP? Row erupts after Dilip Ghosh meets Mamata at Jagannatha temple's inauguration

Kolkata: The infighting between the “old guards” and the “new imports” within the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal escalated a day after veteran leader Dilip Ghosh defied the party’s call for boycotting the inauguration of a temple by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, attended the event, and even met the ruling Trinamool Congress’s supremo.

“I wouldn’t learn how to remain loyal to the BJP from someone who grew up under the wings of Mamata Banerjee and then switched over to our party,” Ghosh said on Thursday, subtly taking a dig at the state heavyweight of the saffron party, Suvendu Adhikari, who had also tacitly hit out at him after he had attended the inauguration of a new temple of Lord Jagannatha in Digha on the shore of the Bay of Bengal.

Adhikari had been a close aide of Mamata Banerjee, but joined the BJP in December 2020, after quitting the TMC. He had taken over as the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly in May 2021.

Ghosh, a former ‘pracharak’ of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had led the BJP as its West Bengal unit chief during the 2021 state assembly polls, which had established the saffron party as the principal challenger to the ruling TMC.

The BJP’s tally had gone up from just three seats in the 294-member assembly in 2016 to 77 in 2021.

The relations between Ghosh and Adhikari turned sour after the veteran leader was asked to contest from the state’s Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 parliamentary elections, instead of Medinipur, where he had won in 2019. Adhikari, according to the party insiders, played a key role in changing the constituency of Ghosh, who ultimately lost to the TMC’s Kirti Azad.

“I never comment on anyone’s personal matters, his comments, his way of conducting himself, his style of working or his love affairs,” Adhikari said after Ghosh broke ranks with the other saffron leaders and not only attended the inauguration of Lord Jagannatha’s shrine in Digha, but also had a brief courtesy meeting with Banerjee, after she inaugurated the temple on Wednesday.

Adhikari was not among the BJP leaders who congratulated Ghosh after the 60-year-old former national vice president of the saffron party tied the nuptial knot with party worker Rinku Majumdar last month. Banerjee, however, sent him a bouquet.

Ghosh’s wife was with him when he met the chief minister in Digha. “God has made you do a great work,” the veteran BJP leader told the TMC supremo. He also posted on social media urging people to visit the temple.

The TMC hyped up the inauguration of the shrine of Lord Jagannatha by the party supremo on Wednesday, even as the BJP on the same day launched a campaign to purify and renovate nine temples, which were allegedly desecrated and damaged during the recent communal clashes triggered by the protests over the new Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, in Murshidabad.

Adhikari and Sukanta Majumdar stayed away from the inauguration ceremony, despite being invited by the state government. So did most of the other BJP leaders, accusing the TMC of trying to use the temple to gloss over its “failure in protecting the Hindus of West Bengal from persecution” and of pursuing “a policy of appeasement” to keep intact the party’s “vote-bank among the Muslims”.

Adhikari did not invite Ghosh to the “Sanatan Sammelan” he held in his Contai on the same day the temple of Lord Jagannatha in Digha was inaugurated by Banerjee. The BJP workers loyal to Adhikari stopped the vehicle of Ghosh and staged a brief protest demonstration when the veteran leader was returning from Digha to Kolkata on Thursday.

The BJP insiders said that Ghosh decided to attend the temple inauguration ceremony and meet Banerjee, despite being repeatedly asked not to do so.

The BJP alleged that the TMC government was demeaning the dignity of the Jagannath Dham of Puri in Odisha by building a Jagannath Cultural Centre in Digha in West Bengal and trying to project it as a temple.

The saffron party sharpened its campaign to project the TMC as an anti-Hindu party, after the recent protests against the new Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, turned violent and led to communal clashes in Murshidabad.