While Roy and his staff have cut off all ties with BJP functionaries, he continues to give statements in support of the BJP.
New Delhi: From a nameless labourer who was employed by the henchmen of prosperous “Marwari seths” to silently unload coals from freight trains that would slowly pass through Kanchrapara, North 24 Parganas of West Bengal, to the holder of the much abused sobriquet of “Chanakya” of West Bengal politics, the journey of the 67-year-old Mukul Roy has seen several turns, but the most interesting one, arguably, is the one that is being witnessed now.
By all factual accounts, Roy is a part of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress; however, in what his supporters and including the number two in TMC—Abhishek Banerjee—have attributed to his “mental condition”, he still acts, at least publicly, that he is a part of the BJP, the ship which he is accused of abandoning following the party’s disastrous performance in the May 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.
On 11 June 2021, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee while addressing a press conference in West Bengal welcomed Roy into the TMC. “Mukul Roy has come back to his own party. TMC has come back consecutively the third time with people’s mandate. Mukul Roy’s decision to come back is a very good decision. He was not well in BJP, it is good for him to come back to the party,” Banerjee said less than 50 days after the TMC won the Assembly election on 2 May.
One month later, in July, he was appointed as the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee by West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee. As a convention, it is always a senior opposition MLA who is appointed as the PAC chairman.
Roy, despite joining the TMC, has not resigned from the BJP as a legislator from Krishna Nagar (North) seat, despite being asked to do so by the saffron party. Earlier last month, Roy told the West Bengal Assembly Speaker that he was still a part of the BJP while replying to a disqualification petition brought against him by the BJP.
Roy, through his lawyers, said that the charges of defection against him were baseless and that he is still in the BJP and that he has never joined the TMC. Roy said that his visit to the TMC headquarters, where he was greeted by Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek on 11 June 2021 in the presence of the media, was a mere courtesy call.
While Roy and his staff have cut off all ties with BJP functionaries, he continues to give statements in support of the BJP. People who have known him say that the self-contradictory statements are a part of carefully thought out plan by the “Chanakya”.
“Since his wife passed away in July 2021, he has withdrawn himself from public life. He, however, continues to carry out the responsibility assigned to him by the TMC and is in regular touch with them being a senior member of the party. However, whenever he emerges in public, he says he is a part of the BJP. This has created a narrative that the death of his wife has taken a toll on his mental well-being,” a local Kolkata journalist said.
Now a visitor diary is maintained at his home which meticulously records who met Roy and for how long. This is being done as Roy has “started forgetting” things due to the “mental trauma” that he suffered due to the passing away of his wife.
This set of actions, observers believe, will help him in case the CBI “suddenly” decides to take a relook at the investigation in the Narada scam. Recently, TMC number 2 and party Lok Sabha MP, Abhishek Banerjee, in a televised interview, too, had stated that Roy was “mentally ill”.
West Bengal BJP leaders believe that it was due to the fear of prosecution in the Narada case that Roy left the TMC and joined the BJP, but not before he had allegedly shared incriminating details against the other TMC leaders, including the top leaders who “benefited” from the scam.
This charge has been vehemently denied by supporters of Roy who said that he joined the BJP to work for the betterment of the people of the state. Roy was appointed as one the multiple BJP national vice presidents when party president Jagat Prakash Nadda had constituted his team in September 2020, exactly three years Roy had formally joined the BJP in September 2017. Roy gained national headlines after he was made accused no 1 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Narada sting scam, the FIR in which was filed in April 2017.
On Friday, West Bengal Speaker Biman Banerjee dismissed Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s petition seeking Mukul Roy’s disqualification as an MLA under the anti-defection law. The Speaker said that the BJP could not give enough evidence to prove its claims.
Roy, by all accounts, including that of his well-wishers and his detractors, is easily the shrewdest politician that is active in contemporary West Bengal politics. “He knows how and when to jump the ship and such are his ways that the very same individuals whom he damages politically, are there to help him. That shows how politically smart he is and how naïve his opponents are,” a former close confidante of Roy said.