Mukul Roy, the former Trinamul Congress Number 2 and currently a BJP national vice-president, was up for a surprise when Union home minister Amit Shah asked him to fight the 2021 Bengal Assembly polls as a candidate.

“Mukulda na korey diten, kintu Amitji bollen tumko ladna hi hoga. Dada aar na kortey parenni. (Mukulda would’ve declined the offer, but Amitji said you’ll have to contest. Dada couldn’t turn it down,” a close aide to Roy said.

Twenty years back, in 2001, Roy had fought elections for the first time on a Trinamul Congress ticket from the Jagatdal Assembly seat. He was defeated by Forward Bloc’s Haripada Biswas by a margin of 13,402 votes. That was the only time Roy was fielded as a candidate in his four-decade-long political career.

Roy, who had switched sides to the BJP in November 2017, is the saffron camp’s candidate for the Krishnanagar North Assembly seat.

In close circles, Roy has been heard making a light-hearted joke about the turn of events. “My son is already a two time MLA. Now, his father is contesting the polls for the second time in his life. If I win, my son will be senior to me in the Assembly,” Roy was quoted as saying by sources.

A through and through back-office man, it is said about Roy that he knows all booths in Bengal like the back of his palm. For the BJP, Roy was the biggest catch in Bengal before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He was made the chief of the election committee during the general election. Later, Shah himself had addressed Roy as the architect of the BJP’s win in 18 of the 42 seats.

Roy would have preferred a similar role for himself in 2021 as well. For quite some time, he had hoped the BJP would form a similar committee again and ask him to lead it. However, the BJP’s top rung had different plans for him.

For the two-time Rajya Sabha member (Roy was elected to the Upper House in 2006 and 2012) and former railway minister (2012-2013), Krishnanagar North is a safe bet, according to sources. In 2019, the BJP was ahead of Trinamul in this seat by 53,551 votes.

However, many close to Roy think the party should’ve spared him the physical stress of being a candidate. He is a diabetic and only last year did he undergo two major surgeries.

“Mukulda’s tryst with the BJP has not been very smooth. For three years, he remained an ordinary member of the party’s national executive committee. The Dilip Ghosh (Bengal BJP chief) lobby enjoyed complete control over the state unit and rendered Mukulda inactive,” a source in the party said.

As a matter of fact, Roy had hoped the BJP would assign him some specific organisational role in the party, after he had proved his worth in the 2019 polls. However, it was only after multiple visits to Delhi and meetings with Shah that Roy was made a national vice-president.

Incidentally, in the BJP scheme of things, a vice-president enjoys lesser power than a general secretary. Though for Roy his promotion to the post was an official induction into the central committee, a section in the BJP thought it was just “a consolation prize”.

Things became a little more uncomfortable for Roy after another Trinamul turncoat Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP in December 2020.

“If you see the polls in general, Suvenduda is addressing so many rallies across Bengal. He is attending road shows. It is as if after Dilipda, Suvenduda is our crowd puller. But where is Mukulda in all these?” a state office-bearer asked.

As Roy has been made one of the 294 candidates, he has almost confined himself to the two-room rented accommodation of Sunflower Apartments in Krishnanagar’s Khounish Park area. He has even restricted the number of poll campaigns for himself as well.

“Mukulda is one of the most prominent faces of Bengal politics. He doesn’t need to introduce himself to his electorate. This is why he is focussing more on strengthening the organisation,” said Arjun Biswas, convenor of the BJP’s Nadia North organisational district under which falls the Krishnanagar North constituency.

“We are confident that he will win and we will also increase the margin more than 2019,” Biswas added.

Sources said Roy had taken a “one day one rally” policy and given more time to organisational meetings. “Mukulda still believes that BJP’s organisational capability isn’t enough and with a weak organisation, one cannot contest the polls,” a source close to Roy said. “He has denied any media interaction at all and strictly devoted himself to organisational work,” the source added.