Despite Mukul Roy’s claims that he “was and still is with the BJP”, the lack of interest which both the Trinamul Congress and the BJP have so far shown in him seems to have hung a question mark over the allegedly ailing leader’s political future and even raised speculations on whether he would ultimately be rendered a persona non grata in national politics.
Maybe sooner, rather than later.
“I am trying to meet a few leaders here in Delhi but I haven’t managed to secure their appointments,” the veteran leader, currently camped at a hotel in the Nehru Place area, told reporters on Wednesday and added: “Since I have come this far, it would be great if I could meet Prime Minister Modi during this trip.”
“The question of joining the BJP again doesn’t arise since I had never left the party in the first place,” Roy, whose verified Twitter bio states “All India Trinamul Congress”, asserted. He was found to be retweeting posts by Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee till as late as 19 March this year.
Asked about his hiatus with the Trinamul after he was publicly greeted at a party function in Calcutta by Abhishek Banerjee post the state elections in 2021, Roy told a Bengali news channel: “That was just for a day. I was not in the right state of mind since my wife had passed away then and I went back to my former party in a state of anguish. But I never joined that party or worked for it since.”
Unwilling to attach any importance to Roy’s unscheduled trip, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said: “Except for the missing complaint lodged by his son which is serious, this is an insignificant matter and we don’t care much about it. It’s best to ignore.” Roy, once considered master poll-strategist and second-in-command in the TMC after Banerjee, is believed to have still retained a soft corner in the heart of the Trinamul supremo despite his defection to the BJP in 2017.
Roy, however, maintained there was no love lost between him and the Trinamul. “There’s no question of betraying the BJP. I was taking it a little easy because I was not keeping well. I was and still am with the BJP. If the party gives me a job to do, I will do it to the best of my ability. I have an establishment in Delhi, I have come here and will speak to any leaders who I can meet,” the leader said.
A great amount of political dust up was created over Roy’s sudden travel to Delhi amid claims from Subharngshu, his son and a TMC MLA himself, that his father was suffering from both serious physical and mental illnesses and the fact that the state panchayat polls could be knocking on the door. Subhrangshu filed “missing person” complaints at multiple police stations on Monday and alleged that “some people were playing dirty politics with an ailing person”.
Roy admitted not having informed his son before he left for Delhi but asserted he was “perfectly fit now both physically and mentally”.
“I have spoken with my son multiple times since I arrived in Delhi,” he claimed.
Mamata Banerjee, on Wednesday, said: “Mukul Roy is a BJP MLA. It depends upon him where he wants to go. It could be to Delhi, Mumbai or Punjab. But I have heard that his son has filed a missing complaint stating his father may have been abducted by two individuals by means of some agency. The police will investigate the matter because that’s their job. But as far as Mukul is concerned, it is absolutely his choice.”
Asked whether there is a political game at work here, she said: “It’s better you ask that question to his son. Maybe he was threatened. You know how the BJP functions. But isn’t it strange that he is already a BJP MLA?”
But leaders of both BJP and the TMC in the state seemed to be keen to wash their hands off Roy. Samik Bhattacharya, spokesperson of the BJP’s Bengal unit, said: “Why did the Trinamul appoint him as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in the state Assembly despite our strong objections if he has indeed lost his mental balance. We don’t bother if he is within or outside our party.”
His counterpart in the TMC, Kunal Ghosh sounded strangely similar: “Mukul Roy is in dire need of institutional psychiatric treatment. He could pose a danger to himself if he is allowed to move around freely. How can such a person be thrust upon our party.”
Roy himself, though, seems blissfully oblivious of these similar-sounding discarding comments coming from opposite ends of Bengal’s political spectrum.
