-Asim Kumar Mitra-
Of late BJP has become a talking point in general masses, particularly in the political circle. In the campaign of current Assembly elections all political parties are concerned with the robust appearance of the party. Both Central and State intelligence agencies have already predicted an enthusiastic result for the party in current Assembly polls, and according to predictions the BJP will get two digit figure in the new State Assembly. Now the party has only one seat. Hence, it is going to be a great leap forward as the above mentioned has predicted two digit win.
Dr Syama Prasad Mookerji was founder of the Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the fore runner of the Bharatiya Janata Party. After the death of Dr Mookerji, Bengal gave a national president to the party and he was Acharya Devaprasad Ghosh. He was an intellectual giant. Among the Bengali personalities, Prof. Haripada Bharati was also a prominent personality. He was an orator and very popular professor. In organisational work very few whole timers used to help them and in initial years of Jan Sangh and then Bharatiya Janata Party has been benefitted by the selfless services of these whole timers. Among the names of Prabhakar Faizpurkar, Bhau Jugade, Ramparasad Das, and later on Debabrata Majumdar, Keshabrao Dikshit, Bansilal Sonee and many more noble souls were involved in this noble work of Indian Nationalism or Hindu Nationalism.
Yes, the work could not excel up to its mark. The reason was, although Bengal was out and out a nationalist and so many Bengalis had sacrificed their lives by taking part in the freedom movement, the Congress and Communists unitedly started a virulent type of vilification campaign mainly against the assasination of Gandhi. There was no question of propriety or decorum or relevance, Congress-Communists-Socialists all had taken a vow to dump the rightist elements in the ground.
Then came the new era when the state of Emergency, promulgated by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was withdrawn. People of India could understand the role of nationalist minded agitators spearheaded by JP, RSS, Jan Sangh, and others. Since then the name of Jan Sangh was changed to Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1977 Assembly election, two very important members of West Bengal BJP were elected in the State Assembly. From that point of time BJP had started gaining ground in the field of politics. People had started remembering Dr Syama Prasad with reverence. The people of West Bengal have finally recognised that it was because of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerji that they could hold back their home and hearth intact. Otherwise, it would have gone to the Pakistan.
Much has been written by Dr Mookerjee, most people are not aware of Acharya Devprasad Ghosh. Born March 15, 1894 he passed away July 14, 1985. In his tribute Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee as Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha had written, “Many a time I accompanied Acharya Ghosh during his extensive tours throughout India when he was president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh. I noticed that at every place Acharya Ghosh was met by his erstwhile students who had occupied very high position of power, prestige and pelf came to pay their respects to their former teacher who they revered deeply.”
BJP enjoyed a golden period in West Bengal. But unfortunately, it could not perform well in the state. Now Shri Modi has taken a positive attitude towards all the states where the BJP is weak. He has given the message that Bengal is a border-State. Hence it should enjoy a special status.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
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