Kolkata: In worrying signs for the BJP, the infighting in its Bengal unit came out in the open on Thursday after its national secretary Anupam Hazra made a controversial statement saying the party's Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar is a “puppet,” who is controlled by others.


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Hazra also attacked Majumdar saying that he "lacks the personality" needed to lead a national party. "Sukanta Majumdar lacks the personality that is needed to lead a party. He is a puppet who is controlled by someone else. This has to stop. If he cannot take everybody along and follows the coterie culture, he is of no use for the party," Hazra said.


Hazra reportedly made these remarks against Majumdar after he was not invited to a protest rally against TMC at Bolpur, his home town. Interestingly, Hazra’s remarks also came a day after the BJP's three-day organisational meet where the state unit leaders were asked to keep aside their internal differences and work as a single unit with an eye on the panchayat poll due next year.


Attacking the Bengal BJP president, Hazra alleged that Majumder acts as per the instructions of a leader who is now in charge of the organisation in West Bengal.


He also held Majumdar responsible for a series of by-election debacles for the BJP in the state and said BJP's dream of winning 200 plus seats in West Bengal Assembly will remain "unfulfilled".


"The party had given the call of Abki Bar Doso Parr (this time we will cross 200 plus seats), but we failed to do so. If this situation continues, we will never be able to win more than 77 seats in the state," he said. BJP had won 77 seats in the 2021 Assembly poll.


This is not the first time that Hazra lambasted the Bengal BJP unit, which declined to comment on it. Earlier this year after the party's debacle in the Asansol Lok Sabha by-poll in April, Hazra, a former TMC MP had criticised the Bengal unit's need to set its house in order by identifying its lacunae and said its existence will otherwise be in crisis in the state.


The state BJP is plagued by infighting and exodus after the Assembly poll defeat and is still licking its wounds. It has been fighting hard to keep its flock together after former union minister Babul Supriyo, party MP Arjun Singh and five legislators, including its national vice president Mukul Roy, switched over to TMC after the Assembly election.


(With Agency Inputs)