Dilip Ghosh (politician)

Dilip Ghosh
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 May 2019
Preceded by	Sandhya Roy
Constituency	Medinipur
Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly
In office 2016 – 23 May 2019
Preceded by	Gyan Singh Sohanpal
Succeeded by	Pradip Sarkar
Constituency	Kharagpur Sadar
9th President of Bharatiya Janata Party - West Bengal
Incumbent
Assumed office 2015
Preceded by	Rahul Sinha
Personal details
Born	(1964-08-01) 1 August 1964 (age 55) Kuliana, West Bengal, India[1]
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party
Other political affiliations	Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Residence	Kolkata
Website	dilipghosh.online

Dilip Ghosh (born 1 August, 1964) is an Indian politician from West Bengal. He is the incumbent Member of Parliament representing the Medinipur constituency in Lok Sabha and also currently serving as the president of the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party.^[2][3][4][5]

Ghosh held charge of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014. In 2016, he was elected as the Member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Kharagpur Sadar, defeating former speaker Gyan Singh Sohanpal of Indian National Congress.

Early life

Ghosh was born into a Bengali Yadav family at Kuliana village near Gopiballavpur of Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal on 1 August 1964. He was the second of the four sons of Bholanath Ghosh and Puspalata Ghosh.

After completing his secondary schooling, Ghosh claims to have pursued diploma in engineering from a polytechnic college in Jhargram over an affidavit filed with the Election Commission of India; however the lone polytechnic institute in the region – Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Polytechnic has since denied the claims over a RTI reply.^[6][7][8]

In 1984, he formally joined Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist organisation as a volunteer.^[9]

Political career

Early Political Career

Ghosh started his political journey as a “Pracharak” of RSS in 1984.He was the in-charge of RSS in Andaman and Nicobar Islands from 1999 to 2007, and worked as an assistant to former RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan. In 2014, Ghosh was loaned into BJP^[10] and was appointed as the General Secretary of the West Bengal unit. In 2015, Ghosh was appointed as West Bengal State President of the BJP.^[11]

Ghosh started his electoral debut in 2016 contesting the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Kharagpur Sadar,He won in the Kharagpur Sadar constituency of Paschim Medinipur district by defeating his nearest rival Gyan Singh Sohanpal, an Indian National Congress candidate. Gyan Singh Sohanpal of Congress had won the Kharagpur Sadar assembly seat seven times in a row from 1982 to 2011.^[12]

In September 2016, Ghosh went on a BJP-sponsored seven-day trip to USA, to highlight "oppression" of the Hindus in West Bengal and infiltration of Muslims from Bangladesh; other speakers in the programme were Subramanian Swamy and Hukum Singh.^[13]

Ghosh won the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha General Elections by a margin of 88,952 votes and a vote share of 48.62% by defeating Trinamool Congress candidate Manas Bhunia.^[14]In August 2019, Ghosh accompanied Ramnath Kovind to an official seven-day visit to the African countries of Benin, The Gambia and Guinea as a part of the official Indian delegation, which also consisted of Pratap Chandra Sarangi, the Minister of State in the Government of India for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.^[15]

In January 2020 Dilip Ghosh was re-appointed as West Bengal BJP president.^[16]

Positions Held

Elected Offices

Executive Offices

Political Offices

Controversies

He is known for his intemperate language and repeated calls to violence.^[17] In May 2016, he raised a controversy when he said girl students of Jadavpur University "below standard and shameless who are always in search of opportunity to be in the company of male students".^[18][19][20] In August 2019, he declared that the Trinamul Congress workers’ families would be wiped out if he would start killing them. Triggering controversy, he even ordered his party workers rather to take revenge against TMC and even the police through violence.^[21][22][23] In September 2019, terming the Left and ultra-Left students of Jadavpur University “anti-nationals" and "terrorists", he insinuated that his party would conduct a “Balakot-like surgical strike” on the JU campus to “drive out the communists”.^{[24][25][26][27]} In November 2019, he stirred up a controversy with his remark stating that foreign cows are aunties, Indian cows produce gold. “The characteristics of Indian cows is that its milk has gold which is why its colour is yellow to some extent. “The Indian cows have hump. But the foreign cows do not have it,” he said while addressing a gathering at an event Gopa Ashtami Karyakram organised by him and Gavikalyan Samity at Burdwan.^[28][29][30] He also courted controversy when he attacked "few intellectuals" for having beef on roads and asked them to consume 'dog meat' at their homes.^[31][32] In December 2019, he was embroiled in a controversy when he said his party allows people to create trouble because the media looks for news.^[33][34] He drew criticism when he turned away an ambulance which tried to make way through a rally he was addressing in Nadia.^[35][36][37] While the ambulance was actually carrying a patient.^[38][39] He claimed that " TMC are doing it purposely. It is their tactic to disrupt the rally". On January 2020, he again raised controversy by remarking that West Bengal has turned into hub of anti-nationals.^[40][41] He also courted controversy when he said anti CAA intellectuals are 'devils' and 'parasites' who don't know about their parents.^{[42][43][44][45]} On January 28, 2020, he raised another controversy when he questioned why nobody was dying at the Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act when several people had lost their lives waiting to withdraw money from banks during the demonetisation initiative over three years ago. "What surprises me is that people were dying after standing in line for two to three hours. But now women and children are sitting in temperatures as low as 4-5 degrees Celsius but nobody is dying! What nectar did they have? I am astonished! What is their incentive (for staying alive)?" he said at an event organised by the Kolkata Press Club.^{[46][47][48][49]} On January 30, he courted yet another controversy with his remark stating that, "Unless you visit jail, you cannot be a political leader".^[50][51] His comments drew widespread criticism from opposition parties when a lone woman carrying anti CAA poster was heckled by his partyman. Later while speaking to newsmen, Ghosh justified the heckling of the woman saying "Our men did the right thing. She should thank her stars that she was only heckled and nothing else was done to her".^[52][53][54] On February 16, he raked up yet another controversy with his remark on anti CAA protesters. He said, "some uneducated, unaware, poor people have been lured with money and are being fed Biryani with foreign funds to continue with the protests.”^[55][56] On March 11, he claimed that, "Corona attacks only by staying away from nature, we who live with nature do not have this disease," he added, "To avoid corona, people should dry their clothes in sunlight for 2 hours, which kills the Coronavirus."^[57][58][59]On March 16, he again claimed that, there is no harm in drinking cow urine and he has no qualms in admitting he consumes it. He said that, "For ages, people in our country have consumed urine, all of them have been fit and fine. I have no qualm in accepting that I consume Cow Urine and will again do so".The claim that consumption of cow urine can cure coronavirus drew sharp criticism from the ruling Trinamool Congress.^[60][61]

References

External links

• BJP Bengal | Bhartiya Janta Party
• BJP Bengal | Video Question and Answer on Oheyo