West Bengal BJP sends 20 vistaraks to study ‘Gujarat model’

GANDHINAGAR: The West Bengal unit of the BJP has sent a team of 20 vistaraks or expansion volunteers to Gujarat to study the party’s ‘Gujarat model’, which has been its most successful so far. The team has been travelling across the state, meeting party colleagues and attending party meetings to understand the functioning of the BJP in the state where it has been in power for nearly three decades.
“The team has been exposed to our structure, starting at the booth level to mandals, zones and districts. It has attended the mandal executive body meeting in Vijapur to see what kind of issues are raised and how they are dealt with here,” said KC Patel, a senior BJP functionary who is handling the visit. “They are also travelling to other states to get a complete view of the party functioning in Gujarat.”

Patel said the team was divided into two units, with one travelling to central and southern Gujarat while the other visited northern Gujarat and Saurashtra. The vistaraks, who are also being exposed to various morchas of the party, met the party president and other senior leaders at Kamalam in Gandhinagar on Tuesday after they concluded their field visit.

“This has been a great experience for us,” said Priyam Sinha, a member of the visiting team. “We are here to learn the ways of the party and this trip is greatly enriching. Once we go back we shall brief our leaders and state president on our learnings, and then they shall chalk out further strategies relevant to our state.”

Asked about the difference between the political cultures of West Bengal and Gujarat, Sinha said that while the erstwhile Left government had followed a policy of appeasement towards the minorities, the incumbent Trinamool government has been keeping the minorities backwards by pushing the madrasa education and catering to pure vote bank politics. “But here we felt that development has been done for everyone, and that is significant,” he said.

Raising the pitch against the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal, Sinha alleged that scores of Rohingya Muslims had been settled in shanties across southern districts of the state. “Didi (Banerjee) has been vocal about how fighting cow smuggling is essentially the responsibility of the BSF (Border Security Force), yet when our MLA Samik Bhattacharya won from Bashirhat Dakshin he had ensured zero smuggling from the sector which was otherwise notorious for cow smuggling,” he said. “Of course he had to pay the price for his actions and lost the seat later.”

Asked whether Hindutva would be an issue in West Bengal, he said, “Yes, Hindutva will be an issue. For Didi it is all about vote bank.”

Although the BJP has notched up massive successes in the Northeast, it is yet to register any significant electoral presence in West Bengal. Nonetheless, it has emerged as an effective opposition to the ruling Trinamool Congress owing to dwindling strength of the left parties and the Congress in the state.

The visit of the vistaraks to Gujarat comes after the West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said that his party was looking to win across 25 Lok Sabha seats in the general election next year and to form the government in 2021.

West Bengal BJP members told ET that a large number of RSS workers had come to the state to assist the party in turning the electoral tide in its favour in the 2019 polls.