Dilip Ghosh
YOU ARE A SITTING MLA. Why are you contesting the Lok Sabha elections?
I told my party that I did not want to contest. Actually, I am not from politics. I worked at the village level as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak. But the party thought that we needed to win maximum seats in Bengal to make Modiji prime minister. So, they asked me to contest.
Won’t your attention be diverted from Bengal?
Not at all. Whether I become MP or MLA, I would remain in Bengal.
There was a huge change in the party’s structure after you became state president in 2015.
We have a collective leadership. I never thought I would be party president in Bengal. But once I was given the job, I decided to lead from the front. When I did that, our workers got rejuvenated. The result was that they were attacked. Despite attacks, people turn up for the fight against the Trinamool Congress. That is the reason we will win.
The target you have been given is 23 Lok Sabha seats. That is like winning 161 seats in the assembly, which would be a majority.
Yes, that is the reason our leadership fixed that number. Twenty-three is the minimum. We are poised to get more.
The Sangh has been there in Bengal, but the BJP has grown only recently.
In 1951, the Jana Sangh was born in Kolkata and the work began. But one day, the work has to be sped up. That day has come. We have changed our strategy also. We have become aggressive. When my workers are attacked and killed, I have to raise their morale.
But the Sangh did not grow during the left rule.
The CPI(M) is a cadre-based party. It used the police and its cadre to attack the RSS and stopped us from doing our social work. But things have changed. It’s not that the Trinamool did not try to stop us. But our workers resisted and took it as a challenge to grow. What really helped us was Mamata’s misrule.
Many call you the future chief minister.
I don’t know my future. I left home 35 years back. My fate brought me here. I only perform my duty. If God wills it, I will do the job you mention as well.
Why did the BJP not grow in Bengal during A.B. Vajpayee’s time?
Today, we fight on the streets. I do not use the helicopters that the party has allotted to me. I travel by car. I travelled 7,000km before the [2018] panchayat elections despite so many attacks on us. I was attacked, my cars were ransacked. We took [care] of the people who were hospitalised. We took care of their legal assistance, food and clothes. So, people have understood we are the real party they need.
Will you take revenge against the Trinamool if you come to power?
We will not spare the officers who played the role of Trinamool cadres and attacked us.