‘Votes will be sought in PM Modi’s name’: Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on party’s CM’s face

New Delhi: West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Sunday said the party is yet to decide on the state’s chief minister and will instead seek votes in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name.BJP names Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari to take on chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) Supreme Mamata Banerjee Hailing from the Babanipur constituency, he has fueled speculation that he is the chief ministerial candidate of the main opposition party.Adhikari, a former TMC leader who joined the BJP ahead of the 2021 assembly elections, is also contesting from his stronghold Nandigram. In 2021, he defeated Banerjee in Nandigram by a margin of about 2,000 votes; later, she won the by-election in Babanipur, returned to the Assembly, and retained the position of chief minister.The TMC has repeatedly described the BJP as an “outsider” party, a narrative that plays into the hands of the ruling party.“BJP did not see anyone as the chief ministerial candidate. In Delhi and Haryana, who did the BJP put as a face? We did not. But we won. The same happened in Odisha. Who did we put as a face? We did not fight these elections with any face,” he told PTI.In Haryana, the current Chief Minister of the BJP during the October 2024 polls is Nayab Singh Saini. Saini succeeded party colleague Manohar Lal Khattar in March that year and remained in the top job after the party defeated the Congress for a third consecutive term.The Bharatiya Janata Party formed the first government in Odisha in June 2024 and returned to power in Delhi after nearly 30 years in February last year. In both places, it has not shown the face of a chief minister, with Mohan Charan Majhi in Odisha and Rekha Gupta in Delhi being the post-election picks.However, Rajya Sabha MP Bhattacharya also left a small window open, saying the party’s top leadership would still be free to take a “different call” later.“If in the next few days, they (BJP top brass) decide to choose one person and fight under that person, then that will be their decision. But no such decision has been taken yet and I don’t think such a decision will be taken. We went to the election by electing ‘Vikas Purush’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari trust and seek votes on the basis of faith in his vision,” he added.Bhattacharya also expressed confidence that the BJP would get a “comfortable majority”, but he declined to reveal the exact number or whether it would cross the two-thirds mark.In 2021, the BJP secured its best-ever 77 seats, compared to just 3 seats in 2016, but still fell far short of its target of 200 seats.On the other hand, Banerjee, who has been in power since 2011, led the TMC to three consecutive victories, winning 215 seats in the 294-member Assembly.West Bengal will go to polls from April 23 to 29, with counting scheduled for May 4.