The exit of Mukul Roy from the BJP and the looming threat of an exodus from the party in the coming days is being described by a section of the saffron camp leaders as a “cure” to what “ails the BJP in Bengal.”
The buzz on Saturday was that Roy was holding dialogues with BJP MPs and at least 10 MLAs from Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Nadia, Purulia, North 24-Parganas and Hooghly.
Roy also held a meeting with the Trinamul all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at his office in Camac street where, presumably this plan was also discussed.
Later on Saturday evening, former state minister Rajib Banerjee held a meeting with Kunal Ghosh, journalist-turned-Trinamul leader.
Banerjee, the former MLA from Howrah's Domjur, had joined BJP before the Assembly polls but could not win his seat.
Banerjee had privately expressed his desire to return to the Trinamul, skipping meetings called by the BJP leadership. Some days back posters had appeared in Domjur slamming Banerjee for betraying Trinamul.
Till the late 19th century, for over 2,000 years, bloodletting was regarded as the standard procedure for treating all kinds of diseases and illness. Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in British India had in a letter from Calcutta to London referred to the possibility of his recovering from a fever since he had been “bled the previous day.”
Little over a month ago the BJP genuinely believed it was going to form the next government in Bengal but is now scurrying to put a fail-safe mechanism in place. The BJP’s Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh is holding a meeting at the party’s office in Hastings.
“Many people joined us. We are not worried about those who have left or those who want to leave,” Ghosh said.
Sources said the BJP leadership is watching closely the likes of Biswajit Das, the party’s MLA from Bagda, and among the few Trinamul turncoats who won this time. Das had skipped a meeting called by Ghosh at Bongaon in North 24-Parganas on Friday.
Disgruntled BJP leader Tathagata Roy warned about “Trojan horses” being left behind in the BJP. "…what’s done is done. Now the big questions is did Mukul leave back Trojan horses within this Trojan horse,” tweeted Roy, whose differences with the current state leadership are well known.
For the BJP, Roy’s exit is a loss of face, but it has no reason to lose sleep over his departure. A senior leader said the party was paying the price of over-dependence on leaders from outside the Sangh fraternity.
“The central leadership felt it needed faces in the micro-level who could manage their election campaign while micro-managing the party’s ideology. They did not have faith in our own leaders and karyakartas,” said a BJP source.
Forty-six of the candidates that the BJP had fielded in the Assembly polls were those who had joined the party within two to three months before the elections. Among them only six have managed to retain their seats.
“Old BJP workers have saved the day for the party,” a BJP leader said.Party leaders in Bengal point to the upward swing that Mamata’s political career took in the state after the 2006 Assembly polls to impress upon supporters that all wasn't lost.
“From 29 in 2006, Trinamul went to 187 five years later. We have 77 seats today. For the first time since 1947 we have got two legislators from Murshidabad (Bengal’s only Muslim-majority district tied in history to the days of the Nawabs of the 18th century),” a BJP leader said. “And the most important factor is there is no other Opposition party in the state. Voters will turn to the BJP in Bengal when they decide to dump Mamata.”
