Dilip Ghosh and Agnimitra Paul: Leading lights of BJP’s Bengal Cabinet, ace veteran and key woman face

Born in Jhargram district in 1964, Ghosh completed his Class X exams in 1980 under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education before pursuing technical training from the ITI Jhargram in 1982 and completing the All India Trade Test from ITI Tollygunge in 1983.

Originally a full-time RSS pracharak, Ghosh spent his formative years between 1999 and 2007 as the in-charge for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where he worked closely with former RSS chief K S Sudarshan. These years shaped him into an organisational leader, a trait that proved vital when he was deputed to the BJP in 2014. He was subsequently appointed the Bengal BJP chief in 2015.

Ghosh is widely credited with transforming the BJP from a marginal player into a dominant political force in West Bengal.

His electoral career has been marked by some significant wins, including victory in his debut election from Kharagpur Sadar in 2016. He went on to represent Medinipur in the Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2024.

Hailing from an Other Backward Class (OBC) community, Ghosh played a pivotal role in expanding the BJP’s grassroots network. Under his leadership, the party scripted its most significant breakthrough in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, winning 18 of the state’s 42 seats. Ghosh won his own Medinipur seat by nearly 89,000 votes.

In 2021, Ghosh oversaw the BJP’s best showing in the Bengal Assembly elections when the party won 77 seats and emerged as the principal Opposition for the first time. The party’s vote share also rose considerably under Ghosh, from 10.16% in 2016 to 40.25% in 2019, dipping slightly to 37.97% in 2021.

The BJP’s 2021 performance fell short of its expectations of dethroning the then incumbent Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), and just months later, amid factional feuds in the party, Sukanta Majumdar replaced Ghosh as the party’s state chief.

Subsequently, Ghosh became increasingly isolated in the party and withdrew from limelight. During the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he was given a ticket from the Burdwan-Durgapur seat instead of his usual Medinipur, where he lost to former cricketer and TMC leader Kirti Azad. That year, the BJP’s Lok Sabha tally fell to 12 seats in the state, even as it maintained its vote share at 39.9%.

But less than a year after he was sidelined – over meeting Mamata Banerjee in Digha for a Jagannath temple event – Ghosh was reactivated by the party leadership ahead of the 2026 elections. The move to bring Ghosh back to

the forefront of the state BJP was among the most significant decisions of the party in Bengal, which was aimed at sending a message of unity among party leaders and workers. It also signalled its intent to pursue a “no-holds-barred” campaign against the TMC, given Ghosh’s credentials as a party firebrand.

In the 2026 polls, Ghosh was once again fielded from Kharagpur Sadar, which he won by more than 30,000 votes.

On the BJP’s growth and his ideological mission, Ghosh said the mandate for the party represents a rejection of the “oppression” of the TMC and Congress. “The rise of the BJP in Bengal is the fulfillment of the dream of Syama Prasad Mookerjee. The voters have given a befitting reply to those who misused their power,” he said.

Agnimitra Paul

Among the BJP’s most prominent women leaders in Bengal, Paul, 51, has now emerged as a key political face after becoming a Cabinet minister for the first time.

Hailing from a middle-class family, Paul was born in Asansol in 1974. Her father Ashok Roy was a well-known paediatrician in Asansol, and Paul herself had initially sought to pursue a career in medicine or engineering. Eventually, she pursued a degree in botany before completing courses in management and fashion design, which later became her professional career.

Paul later went on to establish herself as a renowned fashion designer in Kolkata during the late 1990s. She launched her own fashion brand, Inga, which later expanded across multiple cities. Her work also extended to Bollywood, where she designed costumes for films including Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe and Via Darjeeling, and worked with stars ranging from Sridevi to Mithun Chakraborty.

Her transition from fashion to active politics has often been described as one of the more unusual journeys in Bengal’s political landscape. In 2019, she joined the BJP and was appointed the president of the state party unit’s women wing.

Paul contested her first election in 2021, successfully, from Asansol Dakshin – a seat she retained in 2026. In 2021, she had defeated the TMC candidate with a narrow margin of nearly 4,500 votes. However, in 2026 she extended her margin to over 40,000 votes to clinch a landslide win.