Kolkata, March 18 (IANS) After a prolonged phase of internal party strife, senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh has regained prominence with the party fielding him from his preferred Kharagpur Sadar constituency in West Midnapore district for the upcoming Assembly elections.

Speaking to reporters during his morning walk on Wednesday, he issued a bold challenge, declaring a target of achieving 1,00,000 votes. In the same breath, he also took aim at the Trinamool Congress.

After hitting the campaign trail, he said he is confident that the people of Kharagpur want him. At the same time, he attached no significance to his opponents.

He said, "I have contested twice and won twice. The BJP wins there. We are not in a contest against any specific candidate; our battle is against the party (TMC) itself. Kharagpur typically records a low voter turnout; this time, our target is to secure 100,000 votes."

He also took a dig at the Trinamool Congress regarding their candidate list. He said, "Mamata Banerjee is navigating through an extremely precarious situation. Otherwise, why would she drop 74 sitting MLAs from her candidate list? In the past, she would field just about anyone and declare, 'I am the candidate across all 294 seats.' Those days are gone. She can no longer portray herself as the epitome of integrity; her party has become the very symbol of corruption."

The former BJP MP Further said, "Mamata Banerjee is so disoriented that she cannot even figure out who she is supposed to be fighting against -- will she fight against the Election Commission? Against the courts? Against the Central Forces? The situation is dire. Change is inevitable." Trinamool leader Jayprakash Majumdar has issued a rebuttal to these comments made by Dilip.

It goes without saying that Dilip Ghosh was the driving force behind the rise of the BJP in West Bengal. Over the past few years, his relationship with the party had become strained due to the internal conflict between the old guard and the newcomers.

He had won from the Kharagpur Sadar constituency in 2016. In 2019, he resigned from this seat to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Medinipur constituency. Kharagpur Sadar is one of the Assembly segments in the Medinipur Lok Sabha seat. However, in 2024, he was shifted from Medinipur to the Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha seat. However, he lost the election in that constituency.

Since then, he was side-lined in the party.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Kolkata on multiple occasions to hold rallies, yet Ghosh received no invitation to attend. He even publicly expressed his sense of grievance regarding this. However, the party gained absolutely nothing by sidelining Dilip. Consequently, ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections, Shah himself took the initiative to mend fences with Dilip. With the release of the first list of candidates, it became evident that the BJP leadership had once again fielded him from his preferred constituency -- Kharagpur Sadar.

--IANS

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