Suvendu Adhikari unhappy with BJP, skips party meeting chaired by J.P. Nadda in Calcutta

Adhikari went to another event at the Science City auditorium on Saturday, where Nadda met the BJP rural poll winners and alleged victims of poll violence

West Bengal Legislative Assembly LoP Suvendu Adhikari interacts with media persons after the meeting with West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose: PTI photo

Arkamoy Datta Majumdar, TT, Calcutta, 14.08.23 : Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari is purportedly unhappy with a section of the BJP, which prompted him to skip a meeting chaired by the party's national president J.P. Nadda on Saturday.

The Nandigram MLA, sources said, was taken aback after he was not formally informed about restructuring in the party's organisational districts.

"The notice announcing new district chiefs was not formally sent to Suvenduda. Although our party's constitution doesn't mandate such notices to be sent to the leader of the Opposition, it has been the custom in other state units," a source close to Adhikari said.

"This is one of the many reasons why Suvenduda is extremely unhappy and decided to give Saturday's core committee meeting at a city hotel a miss," he said.

Phone calls from this newspaper to Adhikari went unanswered. However, sources said he told his associates that it is not important for him to attend every meeting, since he is not a part of the organisational structure. Besides, Adhikari is not part of the core committee of the state leadership, which Nadda met.

"Suvenduda said that since only the core committee members met Naddaji, and he is not a part of that committee, it was not mandatory for him to be present. However, we have seen before that he attended core committee meetings," another source said.

Adhikari went to another event at the Science City auditorium on Saturday, where Nadda met the BJP rural poll winners and alleged victims of poll violence.

There, Adhikari highlighted the rural poll results of Nandigram where BJP bagged nine of 17 gram panchayats. He said that to strengthen a political organisation it was more important to win elections than lecture others. Many felt this was a dig at other state BJP leaders who couldn't duplicate his success in their backyards.

On Sunday morning, Nadda met BJP MPs, MLAs and zilla parishad winners from the state. Adhikari attended this event and also spoke on how the BJP legislative party is operating in the Assembly to oppose "Mamata Banerjee's misrule".

However, Adhikari avoided journalists afterward, saying the party spokesperson was the right person to answer queries. Normally, Adhikari is more than comfortable interacting with journalists.