Dilip Ghosh (politician)

On March 2020, he claimed that, there is no harm in drinking cow urine and he has no qualms in admitting he consumes it. The claim that consumption of cow urine can cure coronavirus drew sharp criticism from the ruling Trinamool Congress.[11][12] In September 2020, Dilip Ghosh declared that the coronavirus pandemic had ended and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee imposed a lockdown on the state to prevent the BJP party from holding public meetings in a packed rally.[13] Ghosh was positively identified for corona virus after a month after claiming West Bengal a Covid-free State, and was admitted to a private hospital on October 16, 2020.[14]

On January 2020, 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".[15][16][17] Police later registered a sexual harassment case against Ghosh for his remarks.[18]

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[19] 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.[20]

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.[21]

In September 2016, Ghosh went on a BJP-sponsored seven-day trip to the US, 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.[22]

Under his leadership, in 2019 Lok Sabha election in West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party, without any major political alliance, won 18 Lok Sabha seats out of the 42 constituencies in West Bengal with 40.25% votes.[23] Ghosh himself contested and won the Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency in the 2019 elections by a margin of 88,952 votes and a vote share of 48.62% by defeating Trinamool Congress candidate Manas Bhunia.[24] In August 2019, Ghosh accompanied Ram Nath 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.[25]

In one of his speeches he criticised "few intellectuals" for having beef on roads and asked them to consume 'dog meat' at their homes.[26][27] He launched a political campaign Chai Pe Charcha where he spoke to people while sipping tea. He was attacked on one such campaign on August 30, 2019 in Kolkata's Lake Town area allegedly by Trinamool Congress workers.[28] In January 2020 Dilip Ghosh was re-appointed as West Bengal BJP president.[29] Soon after reappointment, he remarked that West Bengal has turned into hub of anti-nationals activities under the governance of Trinamool Congress.[30][31] On January 30, while addressing a political rally, he commented "Unless you visit jail, you cannot be a political leader".[32][33]

In one of his rallies he termed intellectuals protesting against the CAA as 'devils' and 'parasites'.[34] Soon after he raised questions that why nobody was falling ill or dying at Shaheen Bagh protests, at an event organised by the Kolkata Press Club.[35][36] On February 16, 2020, he took a jibe on anti Citizenship Amendment Act protesters, and said "some uneducated, unaware, poor people have been lured with money and are being fed Biryani with foreign funds to continue with the protests."[37]

Dilip Ghosh has made many controversial comments in his several political rallies including name calling people,[43][44][45] call for violence on political opponents,[46][47][48] protestors[49][50][51][52] and creating trouble.[53][54]

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".[43][44][45] In August 2019, he declared that the Trinamul Congress workers’ families would be wiped out if he starts killing them. Triggering controversy, he even ordered his party workers rather to take revenge against TMC and even the police through violence.[46][47][48] In September 2019, terming the 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".[49][50][51][52] 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.[55][56][57] He also courted controversy when he said anti CAA intellectuals are 'devils' and 'parasites' who don't know about their parents.[58][59][60][61] On January 30, 2020, he courted yet another controversy with his remark stating that, "Unless you visit jail, you cannot be a political leader".[32][33]