Kolkata: The West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced a major organisational reshuffle at all levels.
The party replaced seven district presidents. The districts include Barasat and Bangaon in North 24 Parganas; Arambagh and Sreerampore in Hooghly; Medinipur in West Midnapore; and Burdwan and Katwa in East Burdwan.
In addition, the party also changed the presidents of four affiliated fronts. The reshuffle was announced a day after West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and the party’s state president in West Bengal and Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharya met BJP National President Nitin Nabin in New Delhi on Thursday.
According to state BJP insiders, the move aims to strengthen the organisation ahead of the bypolls. “That is why this reshuffle was made. Apart from this, the ‘one person, one post’ policy in the party was also followed to a great extent in the reshuffle,” said a state committee member.
It is learnt that seven members of the current BJP-ruled West Bengal cabinet, State Municipal Affairs & Urban Development Minister Agnimitra Pal, State Higher Education Minister Jagannath Chattopadhyay, State Commerce & Industries Minister Tapas Roy, State School Education Minister Deepak Barman, State North Bengal Development Minister Nishith Pramanik and Minister of State for Sport Indranil Khan, have been relieved of their organisational responsibilities.
“All of them are members of the current state cabinet. They were also in various organisational positions at the same time. They have been removed by implementing the ‘one person, one post’ policy,” the insider said.
At the same time, the party has appointed new faces as chiefs of four party-affiliated fronts, youth, women, Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Class (OBC).
The new youth wing president is Amit Samanta, MLA from Amta Assembly Constituency in Howrah district. Actress-turned-politician Anjana Basu is the new chief of the women’s wing. Dhananjay Ghosh has been appointed president of the OBC wing, while Biswajit Samanta has been appointed president of the Scheduled Caste wing.