BJP Taps Its Bihar Leadership And Model For Bengal Polls
BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said large number of people from Bihar work in Bengal, and the people of Bengal trust the people of Bihar
By Dev Raj
Published : January 19, 2026 at 7:07 PM IST
Patna: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to use its Bihar contingent and election model for the forthcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
It has already sent around a dozen of its Bihar leaders to work at the grassroots in the state, where chief minister Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress has been holding sway for the past 15 years. Many more are expected to be dispatched in the coming days to work there.
The move comes after the landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Bihar Assembly elections, in which it clinched 202 out of 243 seats, and the BJP emerged as the largest party in the state with 89 MLAs.
Senior BJP leader and Bihar minister Mangal Pandey has been working as the party’s West Bengal in-charge since September 2022, and those being sent now will join him to ensure the expansion of the saffron party’s organisational network and the voter base ahead of the polls.
The BJP has realised that it needs to strengthen the organisation at the panchayat and booth levels, as well as have better coordination between the various units of the party. It has also roped in leaders from organisational fronts pertaining to farmers, scheduled tribes (ST) and others in a bid to woo voters from different sections of society.
These were the key areas on which the party had focused during the Bihar Assembly elections held in November 2025, and it paid rich dividends.
Those who have been sent from Bihar to work in Bengal include general secretary Rajesh Kumar Verma, former state general secretaries Suresh Chaudhary and Jagannath Thakur, former state president of the party’s Kisan Morcha (farmer cell) Akhilesh Singh, former minister Ram Surat Rai, former MLAs Nikki Hembrom and Mithilesh Kumar, and MLC Devesh Kumar.
They were sent to West Bengal around two-to-three weeks ago, and have been entrusted with overall management of the party and its election campaign, political meetings, and reaching out to the voters, in the poll-bound state. They will also take care of the 294 Assembly constituencies, and their role is set to increase further as the elections approach.
Hembrom, who is also a national general secretary of the BJP ST Morcha or front, is currently focusing on 35 Assembly seats of West Bengal where the tribal voters are in decisive numbers. These include 16 reserved for them.
“I am focusing on instilling confidence among the brothers and sisters of the ST community so that they come out to vote in large numbers. They suffered much violence at the hands of the Trinamool Congress workers in the 2021 Assembly polls. They are simple people and have been living in fear since then,” Hembrom told ETV Bharat.
Devesh, who is also the state in-charge of Mizoram, was in Delhi on the occasion of BJP national executive president Nitin Nabin's nomination for the position of the party's national president. "I will return to West Bengal to work for the people there. I have been working there for the past month," he said.
Apart from the leaders from its Bihar unit, the saffron party has also roped in senior leaders from 20 states to oversee the preparation for the Assembly election across the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
Asserting that Bihar always stood with West Bengal due to its close proximity, shared borders and history, BJP spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said, “The two states were part of a single unit during the British rule. A large number of people from Bihar work in different parts of Bengal. The people of Bengal trust the people of Bihar.”
“As a neighbour, Bihar’s responsibility is to see that the government changes in Bengal because the people there are bored and annoyed with the Mamata government. They are fed up with crime and a lack of development. Our party’s leaders and workers are there to serve the people of Bengal,” Patel added.
Incidentally, Patel served in Cooch Behar, Malda and adjoining districts during the 2021 Bengal Assembly polls. The BJP won 30 out of 54 seats in the region. He has been called to serve again and will visit there in the coming days.
Though West Bengal had always betrayed a strong undercurrent of the natives versus outsiders feeling, the Bihar BJP spokesperson pointed out that if the in-charge of the state or Lok Sabha or Assembly constituencies hails from any other state, it instils enthusiasm and confidence among the local leaders, workers and voters.
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