With several TMC turncoats making a beeline to return to the party, post BJP's drubbing in the Assembly polls, state unit chief of the saffron camp, Dilip Ghosh, said on Sunday that the ones who wish to enjoy power without making sacrifices would be asked to leave.
Ghosh, who had said on Friday that party national vice president Mukul Roy's departure won't make much of a difference, wrote on Twitter that "some people are in the habit of switching parties".
"If one has to stay in the BJP, he/she will have to make sacrifices. Those who only wish to enjoy power cannot stay in the BJP. We won't keep them," he tweeted in Bengali.
Echoing Ghosh, BJP national secretary and former MP Anupam Hazra said members who are not willing to stand by the party at this hour, when "several of its workers are facing attacks by the TMC and going homeless, are free to leave".
Hitting out at former state minister Rajib Banerjee, who had joined the BJP ahead of the elections, Hazra maintained that "leaders like him have started singing paeans for the TMC immediately after its landslide victory. They are not required in the party."
Shortly after Roy rejoined the TMC, Rajib Banerjee met the party's state general secretary Kunal Ghosh, but both described it as a "courtesy visit".
"Dilipda said the right thing. Those who crossed over to the BJP before polls only for power and are now sending SOS to Mamata Banerjee expressing their wish to return should leave forthwith. The party does not need them," he said.
Hazra had earlier said lobby politics was at play in the BJP state unit during polls, and just one or two leaders were given responsibilities with the rest feeling "ignored".
He had, however, asserted that he would continue to support his party.
Calling Roy a "Trojan horse", BJP veteran Tathagata Roy tweeted, "After having been welcomed into the BJP, he gained access to its all-India leaders, hobnobbed with state BJP's gullible... learnt all about the party and its innermost detail, he went back and leaked everything to Mamata.
"But what's done is done. Now the big question is, did Mukul leave back Trojan Horses within this Trojan Horse? BTW I used to wonder why Mukul always avoided meeting me. Now it all figures," Roy added, indicating there could be agents planted by Roy in the BJP.
Kunal Ghosh, who is also the spokesperson of the TMC, said many have expressed their wish to return, but our supremo Mamata Banerjee will take the final decision.
His party colleague and senior leader Sougata Roy said, "Had Dilip Ghosh any modicum of self respect and accountability, he would have resigned from the post (of state BJP president) after the poor performance of his party."
A group of five BJP workers in Birbhum district on June 8 took to the streets to announce that they have decided to quit the party and return to the TMC "to get a chance to work for 'maa mati manush' (mother, motherland, and people) under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee."
District TMC leaders said their pleas would be considered after holding talks with local party members who worked for the party during the polls.
Earlier, several other TMC turncoats, including former MLAs Sonali Guha and Dipendu Biswas, had appealed to Banerjee to take her back under her wings.
The TMC supremo, during a recent press meet, said she will not accept requests of leaders, who had abandoned her ship just ahead of the April-May elections.
