When BJP MLA (or is he?) Mukul Roy boarded Indigo Airlines Flight 6E 898 to Delhi which departed at 7.35 on Monday evening from the Netaji Subhas Bose International Airport in Calcutta, there was little clamour at the departure bay except for the three or four individuals and his state-appointed security personnel who had come to see him off.

Two and a half hours later when Roy exited Terminal 1A of the Delhi airport, the political fraternity of Bengal and, perhaps a section of their counterparts in the Capital as well, were already abuzz with speculation about the “missing” leader. Much of those speculations revolved around Roy’s possible second innings with the BJP, ahead of the high-stakes panchayat polls in Bengal.

More lubricant was added to the rumor mills by the BJP national general secretary Anupam Hazra whose cryptic social media post, “The Return”, did the needful. Hazra later explained to The Telegraph Online that his post meant, “nothing is impossible in politics, please keep watching this space”.

Matters, however, took a serious turn during the period Roy remained “untraceable” on Monday with son, Subhrangshu, filing two “missing person” complaints with the NSCBI Airport police station and as well as at the thana in Bijpur, his home constituency, alleging Roy may have been “kidnapped” by people who have brainwashed him to travel to Delhi. Subrangshu had reportedly also rushed to the Airport to prevent his father’s travel and also put in a request with the airline to deplane his father before the flight took off but failed to convince the authorities concerned.

Roy was reportedly accompanied by his attendant, Bhagirath Mahato, and his driver, Raju. Unconfirmed reports suggested that he had a fall out with his son before making his decision to travel.

A smiling Roy upon his arrival in Delhi was heard telling a lady that he was there “just like that” and “for some work he needed to attend to.” “It has nothing to do with politics,” he asserted.

“I am an MP, an MLA. Can I not come to Delhi?,” said Roy, a former MP and an MLA from Krishnanagar Uttar seat in Nadia, even as Subhrangshu maintained his father “was suffering from dementia”. “I keep coming to Delhi regularly, this time the gap has been a bit longer, that’s all. I will stay here as long as it is needed,” Roy, who recently underwent a brain surgery in Calcutta, said. “This is not a visit for medical purposes,” he added.

A flurry of activities were observed back home from Tuesday morning beginning with Subhrangshu holding a press conference to allege that “dirty politics” was being played with his father and that the aim was to “malign Abhishek Banerjee”.

“My father is a mental patient. He is suffering from cirrhosis of the liver and has high sugar. To the best of my knowledge, he hadn’t taken his last two doses of insulin. It is not right to do these things with a person who is both physically and mentally ill. He is no longer the same person he used to be. He thinks he is still living in 2011-12. This trip may adversely affect his mind and body. But there will be no impact on Bengal politics, if that’s what the aim is of those who have planned this,” Shubhrangshu said.

“Abhishek Banerjee is a youth icon and newer generations are getting attracted to politics because of him. The opposition is targeting him, trying to heckle and malign him and are trying to use my father to do that,” he added.

The police sprung into action first, by sending a special team to Delhi to question Roy based on his son’s complaint, and secondly by detaining and questioning Piyush Kanoria, a BJP worker and Roy’s aide, at the Airport PS. Police claimed that they scanned CCTV footage at the Airport from Monday and identified Kanoria was among those who came to see the leader off. Till reports last received, Kanoria had not been released from the police station.

Once among Mamata Banerjee’s most trusted lieutenants, Roy was part of the Trinamul Congress since the party’s launch in 1998. An expert in devising election and organization strategies, Roy was believed to be the brain behind Banerjee’s assent to state power in 2011. He quit the Trinamul to join the BJP in November 2017 and publicly took on Abhishek Banerjee before claiming credit for the party’s impressive performance in the 2019 general elections.

Roy, however, was welcomed back to the Trinamul in June 2021 by Abhishek after he perceptively buried the hatchet against the Mamata Banerjee’s heir apparent. His MLA status remains controversial with the state BJP demanding his ouster from the Assembly under the anti-defection law while Speaker Biman Banerjee ruling him to be a BJP legislator still.

Responding to the dramatic developments since Monday, CPI-M leader Sujan Chakraborty said: “It makes no difference to the people of Bengal who are sitting on the streets for their stolen jobs whether Mukul Roy remains in Trinamul or joins the BJP. This is not an issue for the people of this state at all.”