Dilip Ghosh: The ex-RSS man from Andaman at the heart of Bengal BJP’s rise
0, 0, 0, 3, 77 and 207! Confused about what these numbers are? These are the number of seats won by the BJP in the West Bengal assembly elections since 2001.
For years, the BJP had almost nothing to do with Bengal politics. The party failed to win a single Assembly seat in 2001 and 2011; In 2006, it participated in the elections by making a seat-sharing agreement with the Trinamool Congress, but could not win any seats. In 2011, when the Trinamool Congress demolished the 34-year-old stronghold of the Left Front, the BJP again got zero seats, but in 2016 it opened its account with three seats.
Also Read: Breaking the eastern barrier: Bengal victory redraws BJP’s political map
Few, then, could have imagined that the BJP could one day emerge as the largest party in a state ruled by the CPM-led Left Front for over three decades and later by the Trinamool Congress led by ‘Banglar nijer maya’ (Bengal’s own daughter – a campaign of the TMC) Mamata Banerjee. But as Bengal’s election results were announced on May 4, the BJP made history with a massive majority of 207 seats, dealing a crushing blow to the incumbent TMC government.
A lot has changed in Indian politics in the last 10-12 years, with the BJP becoming the country’s dominant political force under Modi and Amit Shah. But outside the national limelight, the Bengal BJP was also undergoing a quiet transformation.
From cashing in on the erosion of the Congress and the Left Front to building a formidable grassroots network in rural Bengal, the BJP was slowly making inroads like a tiger stalking its prey before the final leap.
Dilip Ghosh was behind much of this rise. The former Bengal BJP president and RSS organizer became one of the architects of the party’s expansion between 2015 and 2021, helping take the BJP beyond traditional urban centers into tribal belts, north Bengal and working-class areas.
“BJP’s rise in Bengal was due to the growing desire of the people for political change and the party’s ability to create a grassroots movement that did not exist in the state before. People in Bengal remember Syama Prasad Mookerjee and his ideology, but there has been no large-scale movement for years that could challenge the ruling establishment or improve people’s lives,” Dilip Ghosh told ET Online.
According to Ghosh, the BJP’s outreach and public mobilization campaigns towards Hindutva are slowly starting to resonate in Bengal. He highlighted programs such as Ram Navami marches, which he said helped the party connect directly with people and encouraged more supporters to come forward openly. Ghosh also said that many BJP workers lost their lives during the party’s political struggle in Bengal, but this sacrifice strengthened the demand for change.
Also Read: BJP’s gains in Bengal could boost reform efforts amid economic headwinds
And for Bengal BJP comes a man from Andaman
Long before Dilip Ghosh became the loud, combative face of the Bengal BJP, he was an RSS pracharak who worked quietly away from Bengal’s political limelight. Born in the West Midnapore district, Ghosh joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1984 and spent decades within the organization learning cadre building, booth management and ideological mobilization. Perhaps these were skills that would later prove vital to the rise of the BJP in Bengal.
Ghosh worked largely behind the scenes for years. He served as RSS in-charge of Andaman and Nicobar Islands between 1999 and 2007 and also worked closely with former RSS chief KS Sudarshan. Those years helped Ghosh become an organization-oriented leader rather than a traditional electoral politician.
In 2014, when the BJP started looking seriously at Bengal after the national rise of Narendra Modi, the RSS appointed Ghosh as the general secretary of the party’s Bengal unit. A year later, he was appointed as the Bengal BJP president at a time when the party had almost no political footprint in the state.
Reflecting on his RSS background, Dilip Ghosh said the organization taught him how to network, connect with common people and raise public issues effectively. “RSS taught us how to organize and engage with people. These experiences shaped me and enabled me to reach out to all segments of society,” he said.
How did Dilip Ghosh set up the BJP stand in Bengal?
What happened next changed the politics of Bengal. Ghosh has aggressively expanded the BJP’s grassroots network beyond Kolkata to tribal belts, north Bengal, Jangalmahal and working-class areas. At a time when many still dismissed the BJP as politically irrelevant in Bengal, it focused heavily on booth committees, RSS-style cadre discipline and relentless outreach at the district level.
His own political breakthrough came in 2016 when he won the Kharagpur Sadar Assembly seat and defeated seven-time Congress MLA Gyan Singh Sohanpal. Under Ghosh’s leadership, the Bengal unit of the BJP has transformed from a fringe outfit to the major opposition force in the state. Then came the dramatic rise of the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 Assembly polls in Bengal.
Meanwhile, the Left Front and the Congress were gradually losing their grip on areas in Bengal, weakening opposition politics outside the Trinamool Congress. Ghosh recognized this shift early and positioned the BJP as the natural alternative. As anti-incumbency sentiment against the TMC government slowly increased, the Ghosh-led BJP capitalized on local anger, polarization and organizational fatigue within rival parties to steadily build its base.
2019: Dilip Ghosh and the BJP’s big Bengal push
Under Dilip Ghosh’s leadership, the BJP made its biggest breakthrough in Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, winning 18 of the 42 seats in the state without any major alliance partners. Ghosh won the Medinipur Lok Sabha seat by defeating Trinamool Congress candidate Manas Bhunia by around 89,000 votes.
Ghosh was also known for taking the BJP’s campaign directly to the streets and tea stalls of Bengal through his “Chai Pe Charcha” outreach programmes, where he regularly interacted with locals over tea. The slogan “Unishe Half, Ekushe Saaf” (Half in 2019, clear in 2021), which points to a strong 2019 performance before aiming for power in the 2021 Assembly polls, has become one of the most well-known political slogans of the Bengal BJP.
During one such Chai Pe Charcha campaign in Kolkata’s Lake Town area on August 30, 2019, Ghosh was allegedly attacked by Trinamool Congress workers, further enhancing his image as a street fight organizational leader among the BJP cadres.
Dilip Ghosh told ET Online that the rise of the BJP accelerated after Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. “In 2016, when I became the state president, the BJP’s vote share in Bengal rose to around 10.5%. This encouraged us because we realized people wanted an alternative,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh also acknowledged that the erosion of Congress and CPM had helped the BJP expand in Bengal, saying many opposition voters increasingly felt that only the BJP could politically counter the Trinamool Congress.
When Dilip Ghosh refused to disappear
The 2024 Lok Sabha election marked a difficult phase for Dilip Ghosh. Ghosh, whose wicket was shifted from Midnapore to Bardhaman-Durgapur seat, suffered his first electoral defeat, losing to Trinamool Congress candidate Kirti Azad by over 1.37 lakh votes. His marginalization within the Bengal BJP had begun in early 2021, when he was replaced by Sukanta Majumdar as the state president during the party’s internal reshuffle following the Assembly elections.
Despite the setback, Dilip Ghosh remained publicly defiant and continued grassroots outreach across Bengal. After his defeat in 2024, Ghosh said electoral losses were “part of politics” and argued that the BJP’s organizational struggle in Bengal would continue. Instead of distancing himself from party work, he continued to attend local programmes, cadre meetings and public events, signaling that he did not want to distance himself from the frontline politics of the Bengal BJP. Even critics within the party acknowledged that Ghosh retained a loyal base of support among workers, who saw him as one of the architects of the BJP’s rise from a fringe group to a formidable political force in Bengal over the past decade.
Now, with the BJP scripting a historic breakthrough in Bengal, Dilip Ghosh has come into limelight once again. For many party workers, his return symbolizes the return of one of the original grassroots architects of the Bengal BJP, a leader who managed to remain relevant despite defeats, internal turmoil and political uncertainty.
Beyond bitter political battles Dilip Ghosh
Dilip Ghosh often made headlines for his outspoken and controversial statements, many of which triggered political storms. His aggressive campaigning style made him one of the most well-known leaders of the Bengal BJP during the party’s rise in the state.
Yet, despite intense political rivalry, Ghosh maintained a surprisingly cordial relationship with Mamata Banerjee; this reflected an older political culture in which rivals could remain personally civil despite bitter electoral battles.
This contrast became visible again when Ghosh attended the inauguration of the Jagannath temple in Digha organized by the TMC government, even though many BJP leaders chose to stay away from the event.
His presence sparked political controversy in Bengal BJP circles but also strengthened his image as a leader willing to separate cultural and public events from day-to-day political hostilities. From exchanging greetings in public programs to maintaining personal warmth between parties, Dilip Ghosh was constantly projecting politics as competition, not hostility.
Dilip Ghosh laid down roots
As the BJP’s organization expanded across Bengal, a new generation of leaders began to emerge within the party; the most prominent among them was Suvendu Adhikari. Once a key strategist of the Trinamool Congress and one of Mamata Banerjee’s closest aides, Adhikari’s switch to the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections has dramatically changed Bengal’s political landscape. She has emerged as one of the strongest faces in the region, defeating Banerjee in the high-profile Nandigram contest in 2021 and again in Bhabanipur in the 2026 Bengal state elections, handing her one of the biggest defeats of her political career.
However, the broader political foundation of the BJP was laid many years ago during the Dilip Ghosh era. By the time the new regional leaders arrived, Ghosh had helped build the cadre network, booth machinery and grassroots presence that enabled the BJP to quickly absorb and expand Bengal’s anti-TMC political space.
