The Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP rally in East Midnapore’s Nandigram on Friday afternoon fetched “over 1 lakh” attendees, but apparently failed in its avowed purpose of inducting members as not a single Trinamul leader was seen on the dais accepting saffron colours.

Originally scheduled by Trinamul turncoat Suvendu as a rejoinder to Mamata Banerjee’s January 7 “mega rally” — that got postponed to January 18 owing to MLA Akhil Giri’s Covid diagnosis — the BJP rally on Friday was attended by state party president Dilip Ghosh, party minder for Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya and another Trinamul turncoat Mukul Roy, but no prominent 2007 land agitation leader was seen.

The BJP rally came a day after Shahid Diwas was observed in Nandigram where most of Suvendu’s aides attended the Trinamul Karmi Sabha or workers’ meeting addressed by state party president Subrata Bakshi and minister Partha Chatterjee.

Around 4pm on Friday, Suvendu and Ghosh were seen on stage acknowledging “roughly 1,000” new inductees into the party who they said could not be invited on the dais owing to “social distancing” protocols.

A BJP leader present on the dais said Suvendu was heard instructing Ghosh not to read out the list of names and simply to send party flags to inductees in the crowd, following which BJP Tamluk district unit president Nabarun Nayak pleaded with his state party chief to announce the names.

Ghosh then went up to the mike and “formally welcomed” the supposed inductees into the party in his “capacity of state president” without reading out the list.

Trinamul leaders dubbed the event a failure. “The BJP’s Yogdaan Mela, as they termed it, was a damp squib as no one joined their ranks,” said a local Trinamul leader later on Friday, reinforcing Trinamul’s claims on Thursday that the ruling party stood united in Nandigram.

The BJP mass induction “fiasco” was preceded by speeches that sought to shift the focus back to the 2007 land agitations in Nandigram.

Setting the pitch for the land agitation narrative, Vijayvargiya said: “Mamata cheated the people of Nandigram despite being elected to power on the strength of its soil.”

Vijayvargiya had to briefly stop his speech as stones were pelted at those taking part in the rally. Police personnel shielded the leaders from physical harm.

BJP leaders slammed Trinamul for its “cowardly act” of attacking BJP supporters.

Suvendu said the incident was the ruling party’s new contribution to the political culture of the state.

Speaking at the rally, Trinamul turncoat Mukul Roy broadened the spectrum to include the Singur agitations, saying: “The Tatas will soon come back to Singur. We will make a request to the PM (to bring back the Tatas), winds of change are afoot.”

A Trinamul leader later said Roy’s statement smacked of “hypocrisy” as he had been Mamata’s most trusted lieutenant during the land agitation that had culminated in the Left Front losing power in 2011 after 34 years in Bengal.

Speaking at the rally, Suvendu announced that he would hold another mega rally on January 19 as a counter to Mamata’s January 18 public meeting at Tekhali.

To hide the party’s embarrassment for not being able to produce any new public recruits on Friday, Ghosh claimed that Trinamul “had engaged state police to contain those who wanted to switch over to the BJP”.

“They are using their usual violent tactics, preventing many people from joining us,” Ghosh added.

Trinamul local leader Sheikh Sufian said the turnout at the BJP rally had “proven Trinamul’s supremacy in Nandigram”.

“The failure of BJP’s Yogdaan Mela shows that the people in Nandigram are with Mamata. The crowd at the BJP rally had been brought in buses from outside as Nandigram refused to bite the BJP bait,” Sufian added.