BJP's two day Chintan Baithak from Saturday

With an eye on the 2021 assembly polls in Bengal, the BJP Bengal unit is organising a two-day brain storming session from Saturday at Durgapur where it will set the dos and don't for the party in the days to come, sources in it said.

The two-day 'Chintan Baithak' will be first such meeting of the party after the Lok Sabha poll results.

Apart from discussing organisational aspects will chart the course of the party for the next assembly polls, the sources said.

The meeting will be attended by senior central leaders of BJP and all office bearers of its state unit. Its Bengal minder and general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, national secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash, co-incharge of Bengal Arvind Menon and BJP state president Dilip Ghosh will be present.

 

"The agenda of the meeting has been set by the central leadership and organisational issues are likely to be discussed. The ongoing membership drive will also be discussed during the meeting," said a senior state BJP leader.

The BJP has set a target of one crore membership from Bengal and so far the state unit has managed to enroll around 60 lakhs, the party has claimed.

The membership drive will continue for next few days.

According to state BJP sources, although the central leadership is elated over party's "maginficant performance" in the Lok Sabha polls in Bengal where it won 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats, it not happy with induction of leaders from other parties to BJP without "proper background check".

Another senior state BJP leader said on condition of anonymity that after the Lok Sabha polls six TMC-controlled municipal bodies had switched over to BJP. But except Bhatpara municipality, the others have reverted to TMC in the last two months.

"This has sent out a wrong message. So the central leadership wants us to have a check and balance mechanism to avoid such an embarrasing situation. That is why it was decided to form a committee which will have state leadership such as Dilip Ghosh and Subrata Chatterjee in the committee to look into the aspect of members joining from other parties," he said.

The BJP had won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state this time, just four less than TMC. The saffron camp has also clocked 41 percent vote share.