Bharatiya Janata Party (MLA) from Murshidabad Gouri Shankar Ghosh on Sunday resigned from the post of State Committee Secretary over differences with the state leadership on inclusion of names for mandal adhyaksh.  Ghosh said that his recommendations for the posts were ignored by the party and that those who have been given places are “TMC’s stooges”.

This comes just a day after the party suffered a major setback in bypolls in Asansol and Ballygunge.

The BJP on Saturday lost the Asansol Lok Sabha seat to TMC’s Shatrughan Sinha by record over 3 lakh votes. The party had won this seat in 2019, by nearly two lakh votes. The BJP also lost from the Ballygunge assembly seat where it came at the third position, after TMC and Left.

BJP MP from Bishnupur Saumitra Khan targeted the state leadership for the defeat and reportedly demanded that inexperienced leaders be replaced if the party wanted to take on the TMC. He also said that if changes were not made then party would face debacle in next elections. According to reports, Khan also said that some suspended leaders should be brought back in The BJP has been facing trouble in its state unit after the last elections, in which it expected to win over 200 seats but could win 77. While the tally had improved compared to the previous assembly elections, the vote percentage had dropped from what it had got in the Lok Sabha polls. Some BJP leaders also defected to the TMC.

Just last month, the TMC swept the civic polls winning 102 of 108 municipalities.

TMC’s Babul Supriyo, who was earlier with the BJP, on Saturday said that bypolls results in Asansol was a ‘slap’ for the saffron party, which he said thought that anybody on its ticket can win the seat. Supriyo was BJP’s MP from Asansol but he left the party to join the TMC.the party.