West Bengal BJP Vice President Chandra Kumar Bose made headlines yet again for calling the saffron party’s founder Dr Shyama Prasad Mukerjee’s idealogy irrelevant.
Bose issued a statement on Twitter and said, “Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee is irrelevant today. Project Atal Behari Vajpayee & Narendra Modi. Follow inclusive ideology of Swami Vivekananda & Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.”
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee is irrelevant today. Project Atal Behari Vajpayee & Narendra Modi. Follow inclusive ideology of Swami Vivekananda & Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. https://t.co/WDPT3eynSW
— Chandra Kumar Bose (@Chandrabosebjp) January 26, 2020
Bose who is the grand nephew of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose goes on to say that the party was formed under the leadership of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vaypayee. “According to me – BJP was formed under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and not Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. Utilising -Dr Mookerjee’s name as founder would not help the Party connect with the people of Bengal or the rest of the country. Vajpayee and Narendra Modi are much more popular among Bengalis & the nation today than Dr Mukherjee,” added Bose in his statement on Twitter.
The BJP leader then took a diversion and said that the party should instead follow the path of Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. This, he feels, will help the party emerge as an inclusive alternative to TMC.
Bose has ruffled feathers in the past with his comments against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizenship (NRC) not going down too well with the party. The BJP leader had also suggested that the minority community be included in the NRC and CAA.
Bose had also disapproved of BJP State President Dilip Ghosh’s comments earlier this month, saying that intellectuals who disapprove of CAA are ‘spineless’, ‘devils’ and ‘parasites’.
The timing of Bose’s recent comments on Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee come a day after India celebrated it’s 71st Republic Day. The party central leadership is yet to react to Bose’s recent views.
The BJP is gearing up to gain voter confidence with the 2021 Assembly elections slated to a be tough battle to oust the two term Trinamool Congress (TMC) government. To add to this, the BJP leadership is also reeling with divided views amongst ranks and files of Bengal’s saffron leaders who want to get a bigger piece of the pie when in the State when the State goes to polls.