BJP selects Bengal state chief, present minister for PM Modi's third government

Kolkata, June 10 (IANS) The BJP’s Bengal state chief Sukanta Majumdar and present minister Shantanu Thakur are the state’s representatives in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third government which was sworn in on Sunday.

Majumdar was elected again from Balurghat in South Dinajpur district and Thakur is also a two-time Lok Sabha member from Bangaon Lok Sabha constituency in North 24 Paraganas district and was the Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways in the second Modi government.

Majumdar, a PhD in Botany and a college teacher by profession, was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Balurghat in 2019, the year when BJP marked its best-ever electoral performance in West Bengal winning 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. Having close associations with RSS from a very young age, Majumdar’s popularity as MP rose after several railway projects were established there following his persuasion.

After the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh, who held the post for two terms, stepped down and Majumdar succeeded him.

Thakur’s rise in politics as a BJP leader was quite meteoric considering that he hails from a family integrally linked with ruling Trinamool Congress for quite some time. He is the son of Mamata Banerjee cabinet minister Manjul Krishna Thakur and the nephew of former Trinamool MP from Bangaon, late Kapil Krishna Thakur. The Thakur family is popular as the founding family of Matua Mahasangha, the biggest association of Matuas, a backward-class community coming to West Bengal as refugees from neighbouring Bangladesh.

In 2019, Thakur was elected from Bangaon, defeating sitting Trinamool MP and family member, Mamata Bala Thakur, the widow of Kapil Krishan Thakur.

A graduate in English literature and holding an advanced diploma in hospitality management, he is credited with the success of strengthening the organisational network of BJP in the Matua bastion of Bangaon. It is perceived that his repeated victory from Bangaon was triggered to a great extent by the recent notification on CAA by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs which created euphoria among the Matua community in the state.

–IANS

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