Roy is unwanted by both BJP and TMC, as the parties have tasted his ‘nasty’ and ‘opportunistic’ politics.
NEW DELHI: Once known as the “Chanakya” of Bengal politics and the “Maverick of Bengal”, Mukul Roy is running from one party to the other to find a place for himself, but Roy is unwanted both within the BJP and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), both of which have tasted his “nasty” and “opportunistic” politics.
Sources close to Mukul Roy told The Sunday Guardian that Roy had come to Delhi with the hope to meet senior leaders of the BJP as he was not getting the place he “deserved” within the TMC. However, till Friday afternoon, Roy was not able to secure any appointment with the top leadership of the BJP.
Sources close to Roy also said that he sought appointments to meet BJP National President J.P. Nadda as well as Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but none of them replied to his requests for a meeting. Mukul Roy has also expressed his willingness to meet the Prime Minister, but sources say that he is unlikely to get anby such appointment.
“Mukul Roy has got sidelined within the TMC, he has been declared as a mad man by the TMC. He has been sidelined, with the TMC not even considering him their leader. He is feeling suffocated within the TMC now and he wants to go back to the BJP, but we are hearing that the BJP is also unlikely to take him back to the party. It was a big blunder for him to leave the BJP after the Vidhan Sabha elections, he is an elected MLA and could have played a strong opposition role within the BJP,” a source close to Mukul Roy told The Sunday Guardian.
Both the TMC and the BJP have on record claimed that Roy was not welcome in either party. TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that Roy is “irrelevant” for the TMC and that he has never attended any meeting of the TMC and, therefore, was not a part of the TMC.
TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also brushed away Mukul Roy, saying that Roy is a BJP MLA and it is his choice wherever he wants to go. “Whether he goes to Delhi or Mumbai or Punjab, that’s his matter. The TMC has nothing to do with him,” Mamata Banerjee said.
The BJP has also distanced themselves from Mukul Roy and Bengal BJP leaders are not keen to entertain Roy into the party anymore. Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said, “Mukul Roy is a rejected leader and the BJP does not need him. The BJP and the workers of BJP do not need a leader who left them at a time when the TMC goons after the 2021 Assembly election result were hunting them.”
Remember, Mukul Roy was elected as MLA on a BJP ticket, after which he jumped ship to the TMC in May 2021; this had left many within the BJP disheartened. But sources close to Roy say that “he had his compulsion to leave the BJP at that time, but he never left the BJP from heart and this the TMC understood and, therefore, never accepted him as member of the TMC family.”
The BJP had also moved a disqualification case against Mukul Roy under the anti-defection law after he switched sides and was appointed as the Chairman of the Public Accounts committee Chairman which usually is given to the opposition. Since then, Roy has always maintained in public that he is a BJP MLA.
However, for quite some time, Mukul Roy remained absent from Bengal politics, both due to his deteriorating health and his non-acceptance by any political party in Bengal. After a political hiatus of over 10 months, Mukul Roy resurfaced in Delhi earlier last week, creating both a political storm and a family drama.
Roy’s son and TMC leader Shubhrangshu Roy claimed that his father was missing. Shubhrangshu had also registered a missing person’s complaint with the Airport Police Station in Kolkata over his father missing from their home. Shubhrangshu also said that his father was unwell and that he was suffering from severe dementia and, therefore, he has been making all sorts of statements.
However, Mukul Roy said that he had come to Delhi on his free will and he has the right to travel anywhere and that it was a family matter which will be solved with his son.
Roy, according to sources, has been suffering from both dementia and Parkinson’s disease which involve mental instability and neurological disorders. According to reports, Roy also underwent a surgery some months back and was advised rest.
Roy was once considered the closest aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and a founding member of the TMC. He jumped to the BJP in 2017, after the TMC sidelined him owing to his growing differences with Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of Mamata Banerjee and now the TMC’s second-in command. He was then made the Vice President of the BJP and was considered close to Kailash Vijayvargiya.