This Article is From Nov 17, 2015

Bihar Defeat Will Only Have Temporary Impact: Bengal BJP

Bihar Defeat Will Only Have Temporary Impact: Bengal BJP

BJP President, Amit Shah's rally, scheduled to be held in Kolkata on November 30, was officially called off last Thursday,

Kolkata: The big defeat of the BJP in the Bihar Assembly poll might have resulted in the cancellation of party president Amit Shah's much-touted rally in Bengal, but the party's state leadership asserted that the drubbing would only have a 'temporary' impact.

The leadership is confident that it will not be long before the party workers will have their morale restored.

"It is obvious that the Bihar poll verdict will have a temporary impact in Bengal. If we had won, it would have a temporary impact too. Politics in Bihar and Bengal are different cups of tea. In Bihar it is caste-based politics, but in Bengal it is development politics versus TMC's reign of terror," said BJP state president Rahul Sinha.

Mr Shah's rally, scheduled to be held in Kolkata on November 30, was officially called off last Thursday, instead the party would organise a protest-march on that day to be attended by party leaders Siddarth Nath Singh and Kailash Vijayvargiya.

BJP's national secretary, Mr Singh, too agreed that win or loss in a neighboring state might have a temporary impact. "We have been winning Bihar since 2005, but did that have an impact in Bengal? So how will it now make a difference?" he said.

However, Mr Sinha had sung a different tune on October 28 when he claimed that the BJP would concentrate on West Bengal after the Bihar election.

The BJP leadership had even claimed that after the party emerged victorious in Bihar Assembly elections, it would sound the death knell for the ruling Trinamool Congress in Bengal.

A senior state BJP leader, considered to be close to party's ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said on the condition of anonymity that the party in Bengal was in "complete disarray".

"There are several factors at play right now. The central leadership right now doesn't want to jump the gun in Bengal," the leader said.

The BJP leader also felt that there was a growing dissent in the rank and file over outsiders, who had joined the party in Bengal after 2014, being given important positions at the expense of old-timers.
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