By Express News Service
KOLKATA: Murmurs of a cash squeeze in West Bengal BJP following hesitation from Delhi in allocating funds has upset and kindled disinterest among party leaders in the state in contesting the civic polls. The saffron camp’s poor show in the recent Assembly polls and subsequent by-elections is the reason.
Voting to the Kolkata and Howrah municipal corporations are scheduled to be held on December 19 and polls to around 110 other civic bodies are likely to be held next year for which the BJP needs 4,000 odd candidates to contest. Senior BJP leaders admitted that if the party couldn’t put up candidates in all the seats in the upcoming civic polls, it would be another face loss after the debacle in the Assembly polls.
Before the Assembly elections, application drop boxes were kept at the BJP’s two offices in Kolkata as thousands of aspiring party workers were queuing up seeking nomination. “But this time the picture is completely opposite. Behind the lack of interest, one of the main reason is cash crunch with the party’s state unit after the massive show before Assembly polls.
It has been unofficially conveyed that party’s central unit will not be funding poll campaigning. The cost in several wards in central Kolkata, where we have a strong base of non-Bengali electorates, will be around half crore. Who will spend that kind of money?” asked a BJP leader.
The ruling Trinamool Congress’s probable candidates are already in campaign mode in Kolkata and Howrah. “The TMC is much ahead of us in terms of poll preparedness,” said the leader.
