West Bengal: Not sure if Mukul Roy’s exit can be a loss for BJP, says Dilip Ghosh

KOLKATA: Mukul Roy’s ‘ghar wapsi’ is more of an “image loss” for BJP than an “organizational loss”. Seldom has BJP, which claims to be the largest party in the world, suffered a blow from leaders at the national vice-president level. Roy’s exit has prompted Bengal BJP backroom boys to start counting names — MLAs, MPs — who are likely to follow suit.
According to sources close to the development, at least 17 MLAs and 3 MPs are under BJP’s radar.
State BJP leaders had kept their fingers crossed on Roy’s future. Their suspicion grew after the party’s Bengal poll debacle. BJP brass in Delhi spent time with leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari but didn’t call Roy to the capital.
When news broke that Roy was heading to Trinamool Bhavan, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh was away in Nadia. “What do I do?” Ghosh said and added that he was busy reaching out to BJP victims of post-poll violence.
He was not sure how Roy’s exit would affect BJP ranks. “Did BJP actually gain from him? If not, how can his rejoining Trinamool be a loss? I am not very sure of how it can be a loss to the party,” Ghosh said.
BJP national secretary Anupam Hazra differed. He pointed to “lobbies at work” within Bengal BJP that didn’t allow efficient organizers to work. “This is an outcome of lobbies trying to take centrestage during the polls. Capable ones were forced to remain on the sidelines and felt insulted. Royal passengers of the chartered flight are missing,” Hazra said.
He did swear by the party but said “it is time that Bengal BJP utilizes capable leaders”.
Rumours of Roy’s return to Trinamool were doing the rounds since July 2020 when he had removed PM Narendra Modi’s posters from his Delhi home. The BJP brass pacified Roy by making him national vice-president in September that year although he was more interested in the top organizational post for Bengal. It didn’t happen. Instead, the BJP brass gave prominence to Suvendu in the Bengal polls and kept Roy out of the overall poll strategy other than giving him a ticket for Krishnanagar North.
A few days later, Roy went to the Bengal assembly and exchanged courtesies with Trinamool’s Subrata Bakshi, raising BJP brows.
Roy sent out the second tell-tale sign of his discomfort when he abstained from BJP office-bearers’ meet. “His wife was critical that day. Her health remains the same today. But he went to Trinamool Bhavan,” said Bengal BJP vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar.
BJP’s Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh swore at Roy. Another Trinamool-turned-BJP leader Shilbhadra Dutta said such frequent changing of loyalties “doesn’t go down well among the public”. Former Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy, who has been vocal against ‘dal badlus’, took Roy’s exit as “good riddance”. BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta said on Twitter: “An election setback is of concern. The task of Bengal BJP is to draw the lessons & move ahead.”