Trinamul Congress vice-president Saugata Roy appeared grim on Wednesday as he issued a statement suggesting a shift in former minister Suvendu Adhikari’s stand on a truce, barely 18 hours after the 73-year-old MP had said the rebellious East Midnapore leader was not leaving the party.

In a dramatic turn of events after what Roy had described on Tuesday night as a “beautiful, fruitful, amicable discussion” between the sparring factions of Adhikari and Trinamul’s de facto Number Two Abhishek Banerjee, the Nandigram MLA sent a text message to Dum Dum MP Roy on Wednesday afternoon, stating it was “difficult” to work together.

“I had communicated to you (media), truthfully, whatever happened at the meeting last evening and what was decided, in the presence of five people,” said Roy, one of the emissaries of the topmost tier of the leadership who had been relentlessly pursuing negotiation with Adhikari, hoping to retain him.

The “five people” Roy mentioned were himself, Adhikari, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek, poll consultant Prashant Kishor and Calcutta North MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay. The Trinamul chief had briefly joined the meeting telephonically, addressing Adhikari and others via speakerphone.

“If there is any change of mind on the part of Suvendu, it is for him to decide and communicate to you,” added Roy on Wednesday afternoon, acknowledging receipt of the text message from Adhikari but refusing to divulge details on its content or react to it.

However, given how the undying optimism of Roy on the Adhikari issue turned seemingly to pessimism — he said there was no scope for negotiation or further meetings if the former minister has, indeed, changed his mind — it became apparent that the frantic outreach from the Nandigram MLA’s camp since Wednesday morning, urging against believing the Triamul version, was with a clear purpose.

According to sources, in the message to Roy, Adhikari told him that the concerns he had raised were yet to be addressed.

“The issues I had raised are yet to be resolved. Without resolving them, everything is being imposed on me. I was to conduct a news conference on December 6. There, I was to state my position. But before that, you told the press everything,” said a Trinamul leader, quoting from the text, sent in Bengali.

“It is difficult for me to work together. Please excuse me,” added the leader, quoting Adhikari’s text.

Sources close to Adhikari said he would conduct that news conference on December 6, a day ahead of Mamata Banerjee’s proposed rally in Midnapore, where she had asked him to show up during the interaction on Tuesday night.

Speculation has been rife for months that Adhikari, 49, who resigned from the cabinet on Friday, could join the BJP or float a new party aligned to the NDA, to deal a body blow to Trinamul in the Assembly elections. He is yet to resign from the party — he remains a general-secretary and part of the seven-member apex steering committee — and the Assembly.

However, after the leadership almost pulled off a major coup on Tuesday evening by making Adhikari sit face to face with Abhishek and Kishor, claiming resolution thereafter, some saw in it a “miracle”.

But things started changing soon after.

At least one senior BJP leader — a Trinamul turncoat — said Adhikari had called him up late on Tuesday night and expressed “bitter displeasure” over what was being said by Roy and others to the media, as they were “lies”.

Then, till around midday, the former minister’s acolytes reached out to several key loyalists —waiting for Adhikari’s decision to figure out their own political future — to not believe the Trinamul version.

A senior Trinamul MP, with a relatively objective stand on the Adhikari issue, said both sides had been trying to use the negotiations to seek leverage.

“The meeting had been arranged after Suvendu seemed almost over-eager. Suvendu had hoped the meeting and its content would be kept a secret, at least till he spoke to the media. He would probably have used the time to bargain, one last time, with the BJP. But Kalighat had other plans,” he said.

“The public statements were deliberately issued. That cornered Suvendu and made him very angry,” he added.

“Suvendu is yet to get what he wants from the BJP. That is why he is yet to jump ship.”

The likes of BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh, who sounded deflated on Tuesday night, were buoyant again over the developments of Wednesday.

“These old men being brought out of virtual retirement by Trinamul to desperately try and keep their young leaders from leaving have not been able to convince them. Give them to us, we will take care of them. Such hilarity is rare,” said the Midnapore MP.