The three-day Bengal visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah later this month has been postponed, State BJP president Sukanto Majumdar has said. Shah was scheduled to visit Bengal between March 27 and 29 to take part in some organisational meetings.

Majumdar said that the visit was postponed as it coincided with Eid ul Fitr.

Shah was to visit Bengal at a time when there was a churning within the State unit regarding the election/selection of a new State president as Majumdar was likely to vacate his present post on account of his becoming a Union Minister.

There were plans to get a new State president before Shah’s visit but no name has yet been finalized, inside sources said. “It is important that a new State president placed so as to discuss the strategic and organizational issues with a leader as high as Amit Shah ji … we hope we get a new State president by when he comes on a new date,” a BJP State committee leader said.

According to the party rules more than half of the district presidents have to be elected before a State president’s name is announced.

The Bengal BJP which has 42 organisational districts had recently elected 25 district presidents and as such there was no problem in getting a new State president. However inside sources said that the appointment of a new State president was being delayed as a number of names were doing the rounds for the post. While one faction wants Majumdar to continue in his post, a second group wants reappointment of former MP and senior leader Dilip Ghosh to be appointed in his place. Ghosh had been the party’s State president from 2015 to 2021 between which the Bengal BJP witnessed maximum jump winning 18 parliamentary seats and 77 Assembly seats.

There are other names which are doing the rounds too. These include those of State Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari, former MP Locket Chatterjee, and former State president Rahul Sinha, sources said. Though Adhikari has gone on record saying that he was not in the race considering the one-man-one-post formula sources close to him said that he too was interested in becoming the State president.