The BJP Bengal CM face.

There was one takeaway from yesterday’s Amit Shah’s meeting. He cleared the air on the issue of the future Chief Minister of Bengal that the CM will be from this very soil. Whether he meant the soil of Midnapore, or West Bengal remains unclear. The probability arises if only his party wins a clear mandate. However, the Home Minister nearly achieved his confident prediction of winning 22 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This time Shah has predicted 200 seats for the BJP out of 294 seats in the Assembly. The elections are barely five months away.

I looked around for BJP CM face from the current probable, though springing up surprises is quite normal for the national party.

1) The first in the list is Dilip Ghosh, the present State BJP president. As compared to his predecessors, Dilip is blunt and boldly stood up with the aggressiveness of the TMC. He has organizational skills but may lack the wherewithal for leading a government.

2) The second is Tathagata Roy, the former MP and the past Governor of Tripura and Meghalaya. Though he is well educated, and RSS might back him, his age is a disadvantage. BJP usually retire those above 75 and Toy is 75 years old. His Hindutva utterances even while holding the post of Governor, have often embarrassed the party.

3) The third is Swapan Dasgupta, 65 and educated in Delhi and London. He has an acceptable face by the Kolkata and urban elite. He has no political base and will not cut ice with the masses.

4) The fourth is Swami Kripakarananda, who is a monk under the Ramakrishna Mission. He was a surgeon in the US before the monkhood. The rumour is that he was with the RSS, trained incognito for a few years. He could do an ‘a la Yogi’ like in the UP. The RK Mission has stated that its order is strictly apolitical and denied the news.

5) The fifth is Sourav Ganguly, the cricketer and the President of BCCI and working closely with Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah. Sourav allegedly spurned offers for an MP seat by TMC during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. There is one serious aspect indicating his name as a serious contender, about which unfortunately I cannot write.

6) The sixth face is Suvendu Adhikari, the recent member in the BJP. His future will depend on how useful he could be to the BJP in effecting defections and winning seats in the forthcoming elections.

7) The Seventh could be Babul Supriyo, the present MP from Asansol and a Union State Minister. He is young but may not be refined or matured for handling the CM’s chair.

8) The Eighth could be an educationist who is an apolitical face. BJP keeps close the trump card also for the reason that such premature announcement might prevent future very high-profile desertions from other parties into the BJP fold.

The list is neither in chronological order nor conclusive and is bound to change.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix