Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal
Bharatiya Janata Party, West Bengal is a state subsidiary of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal. The headquarters is located in Kolkata. The BJP have its roots in Syama Prasad Mukherjee and the Jan Sangh.
The party appointed Dilip Ghosh as the president of the state unit of the BJP and he is currently serving to this position from 2015.
History
Brief History
Early elections
The Bharatiya Janata Party contested the West Bengal assembly election for the first time in 1982. The primary objective of the party was to create a nucleus for a future third force in West Bengal politics. The party supported the call of the West Bengal government to hold the elections in March 1982. The party contested on 52 assembly constituencies and got around 129,994 votes in the state.In 1984 Lok Sabha election, BJP contested on 9 seats and got 101165 votes in West Bengal.
In the 1987 the party contested on 57 constituencies and slightly increased its votes to 134,867.
In 1989 Lok Sabha election, BJP contested on 19 seats and got 529618 votes in West Bengal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party fielded 291 candidates across the state in 1991 Vidhan Sabha election, and managed to increase its share of votes from 0.51% in 1987 to 11.34%. This was the first time BJP fielded such a large number of candidates in West Bengal assembly elections. The party also fielded 42 candidates for the 1991 Lok Sabha election which took place simultaneously with the Vidhan Sabha election. The BJP got 3624974 votes in this election. Rather than focusing primarily on the Ayodhya issue, which was highlighted in the BJP campaigns across the country, the West Bengal BJP campaign concentrated on agitations against immigration from Bangladesh. The campaign sought to invoke Bengali memories of Partition. Whilst support for BJP increased amongst Bengali communities, its main stronghold in the state remained non-Bengali populations in Calcutta.
In 1996, both Assembly election and Lok Sabha election took place simultaneously, the party contested on 292 assembly constituencies and got 2,372,480 votes and contested 42 Lok Sabha seats and got 2525864 votes across the state.
In 1998, the BJP contested on 14 seats and won 1 Lok Sabha seat for the first time in West Bengal from Dum Dum. It got 3724662 votes. Tapan Sikdar, who was serving as the West Bengal State President of BJP, won the Dum Dum constituency with 631,383 votes defeating nearest rival Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee of the CPI.
In 1999, the BJP in an alliance with All India Trinamool Congress contested 13 seats and won 2 Lok Sabha seats and got 3,928,424 votes. The two elected Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha were Satyabrata Mookherjee from Krishnanagar with 43.82% votes and Tapan Sikdar from Dum Dum with 51.59% votes.
Post 2000
In 2001 the party contested on 266 constituencies and got 1901351 votes throughout the state and 5.68% in seats contested.In the 2004, the National Democratic Alliance was completely decimated by CPI led Left Front and INC led UPA. The BJP didn't won a single seat and its ally All India Trinamool Congress was reduced to just 1 Lok Sabha seat. The BJP however managed to get 2983950 votes.
In the 2006 elections, the BJP got in an alliance with the All India Trinamool Congress and contested on 29 constituencies. The BJP got 760236 votes throughout West Bengal and 19.89% on seats it contested.
In 2009, BJP candidate Jaswant Singh, with support from Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat with 4,97,649 votes. Across the state BJP got only 6.14% votes.
Post 2010
In 2011 the BJP allied with GJM.In 2014 the BJP won only 2 seats. But what was significant is that BJP candidates for the first time, returned runner-up in 3 seats and it also got 17.2% vote share throughout the state. It was BJP's best performance so far surpassing its previous best of 11.66% in 1991 elections. However the All India Trinamool Congress dominated the election winning 34 seats.
In 2016 the BJP in an alliance with GJM contested 291 seats and got 5,555,134 votes and created history by winning 3 assembly seats for the first time.
There was a major political shift from the left to the right in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in West Bengal. The Bharatiya Janata Party, without any major alliance, won 18 Lok Sabha seats out of the 42 constituencies with 23,028,343 votes.
This obviously is the most important impact of the general elections in the state visible in the voting pattern right across the state, irrespective of who won or lost a particular seat.
Soon after, the Government of India passed the Citizenship Act, 2019 in the Parliament of India, promising citizenship to Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh and hoping to garner their vote.
Post 2020
The BJP's Bengali booklet released in January 2020 claimed that the National Register of Citizens will be implemented to identify the undocumented migrants, but Hindus, Sikhs and other non-Muslims will be "shielded" by the Citizenship Amendment Act.Leadership
List of Past Presidents
| No. | Name | Term in office |
| 1 | Haripada Bharati | 1980-1982 |
| 2 | Dr. Vishnukant Shastri | 1982-1986 |
| 3 | Sukumar Banerjee | 1986-1991 |
| 4 | Tapan Sikdar | 1991-1995 |
| Dr. Vishnukant Shastri | 1995-1997 | |
| Tapan Sikdar | 1997-1999 | |
| 5 | Ashim Ghosh | 1999-2002 |
| 6 | Tathagata Roy | 2002-2006 |
| Sukumar Banerjee | 2006-2008 | |
| 7 | Satyabrata Mookherjee | 2008-2009 |
| 8 | Rahul Sinha | 2009-2015 |
| 9 | Dilip Ghosh | 2015–incumbent |
Elected Members
Incumbent Member(s) of Parliament
Incumbent Member(s) of Legislative Assembly
Organisation and Structure
- State President: Dilip Ghosh
- State Vice President: Arjun Singh, Subhash Sarkar, Bishwapriya Raichaudhury, Pratap Banerjee, Rajkamal Pathak, Bapi Mitra, Ritesh Tiwari, Jay Prakash Mazumdar, Anindya Banerjee, Dipen Pramanik, Bharati Ghosh and Mafuza Khatoon.
- State General Secretaries: Sayantan Basu, Locket Chatterjee, Jyotirmoy Mahato, Sanjay Singh and Rathindranth Basu.
Morcha Presidents
- BJYM: Saumitra Khan
- Mahila Morcha: Agnimitra Paul
- S.C. Morcha: Dulal Bor
- S.T. Morcha: Khagen Murmu
- Kishan Morcha: Mahadeb Sarkar
- Minority Morcha: Ali Hossain
- O.B.C Morcha: Swapan Pal
Departments
| Departments | In-Charge |
| Media Department | Saptarshi Chowdhury |
| Department of Coordination of IT, Website and Social Media Activities | Ujjwal Pareek, Joy Mallick |
| Department of Legal | Brajesh Jha |
| Department for Good Governance | Subhash Sarkar, Sanjay Singh |
| Department for Policy Research | Samik Bhattacharya |
| Media Relations Department | Sayantan Basu |
| Training Department | Deepanjan Guha |
| Department of Political Feedback | Jayprakash Majumder |
| Department of Political Programs & Meetings | Pratap Banerjee, Vidyasagar Mantri, Pradip Mishra, Biplab Mitra |
| Library and Documentation Departments | Gopal Sarkar |
| Department of Disaster Relief and Assistance | Prakash Das |
| Department of Development of Publicity Literature | Manoj Das |
| Departments of Coordination of Trusts | Tapan Ghosh |
| Department of Election Management | Pravakar Tewary |
| Department of Coordination with Election Commission | Joyprakash Majumder, Sisir Bajoria, Sanjoy Singh |
| Departments of Party Journals and Publications | Pranoy Roy |