Mukul’s Jihad Against Mamata: Will BJP Benefit from Sudden Exit?

With organisational abilities to his credit, will Mukul Roy’s exit benefit the saffron party in Bengal?

(Photo: Saumya Pankaj/ The Quint)

The suspense over Mukul Roy’s exit from the Trinamool Congress, after an association of over 20 years, lingers as his future political moves are still shrouded in mystery.

As Roy is said to be waiting for a “diksha” (adopting a spiritual path) from the Belur Math monks in Kolkata, according to his close associates, and a visit to Bangladesh later this month – the drama, so far, has failed to reach climactic heights.

Plan After Resignation

This uncertainty, however, according to top BJP sources, is largely because Roy’s induction into the BJP, and the responsibilities to be vested in him, are yet to be finalised.

Mukul Roy’s bid has been to secure a position of national general secretary of the BJP and hold the prime charge for West Bengal elections – the panchayats in 2018 and the Lok Sabha in 2019.

If agreed, that will lend muscle to Roy’s political future, and he might hope for a respectable political rehabilitation as a politician. It is only with a free hand from the BJP that Mukul’s jihad in Bengal can provoke more dissent from the Trinamool Congress, or other parties like the Left and Congress.

Without the BJP, Roy is likely to face a total rout and will wither away like a straw in the wind, say political analysts in Bengal. Mukul Roy had never been a mass leader, ready to face the test of ballots. He is a deft organiser.

BJP Struggling to Achieve its Target in Bengal

The scripts, after Roy’s resignation, have followed the anticipated and predicted political lines with a number of BJP stalwarts, including Kailash Vijayvargiya, and the state leadership acknowledging his organisational ability as a political leader.

Ever since the BJP narrowed down its focus on West Bengal, and listed it as one of the rising BJP states, it had time and again stumbled because of the party’s lack of organisational strength.

Barring Kailash Vijayvargiya and to some extent Siddharth Nath Singh – none of the BJP leadership – particularly the party’s West Bengal flock – could rise to the occasion and make political inroads. But Vijayvargiya’s fighting grit – befitting Bengal’s political cult – and Siddharth Nath’s verbal jibes, needed to be backed up and boosted by home grown Bengal leaders. Unfortunately, none could match the requirement.

It is over four years now that the party had brainstormed and designed a primary goal for itself in West Bengal – to have at least one or two committed members in all the 77,000 booths in the state.

During the party president Amit Shah’s last visit to the state, a scrutiny of the goal showed that it fell far short of the target and did not cross beyond 45,000 booths, where at least one committed party worker could be designated.

Also Read: Mamata-Mukul Fallout: What Happened & What It Means for the TMC

Senior Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy addressing the media in Kolkata on 25 September 2017.(Photo: IANS)

Mukul Roy’s Organisational Ability

Mukul Roy was quick to identify this, and one of his comments post resignation was related to this booth level outreach when he pointed out that he had loyal workers down to every booth in the state.

Within the Trinamool Congress, it is widely known but may not be concerned because of the present belligerence – that Mukul Roy had been the second in command after Mamata Banerjee, who had built the Trinamool Congress brick by brick, block by block.

It was his political manipulations, of course, with the authority and sanctions given to him by Didi – that one had been witness to how the mighty Left began to bleed as he engineered one defection after the other, starting from the panchayat level up to the MLAs and MPs.

Similarly, he had split the Congress, roping in many in to the Trinamool Congress fold. It was largely because of his maneuverings that the Left’s hold on power was reduced to just one municipality in West Bengal in Siliguri. Similarly, the Congress is reduced to one municipality in Joynagar in South 24-Parganas.

Mukul is an old hand in engineering defections and might try to repeat it should the BJP give him an opportunity.

Painful Separation from Trinamool

But then what made Mukul fall from grace of Mamata Banerjee? That the separation from Trinamool Congress had been a painful one is admitted by Mukul himself, who claimed to have got the registration for the All India Trinamool Congress party way back on 17 December 1997 from the Election Commission of India.

Mukul’s pent-up anger and grief was captured in a single sentence he made after resignation:

She (Mamata Banerjee) may be a leader, but we are not servants.

Close associates of Roy recall the first phase of disengagement between Mukul and Mamata, after Roy met the CBI officials, and informed them that he was not the railway minister when a contract was awarded to Sudipta Sen of Saradha by the ministry.

Soon afterwards, he was not only removed from the post of all India general secretary but informed sources said that there was a period of 13 months when Mamata Banerjee did not speak a single word to him.

Former TMC leader Mukul Roy was uncomfortable with the rise in stature of Mamata’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee.(Photo: Facebook/ Abhishek Banerjee)

Allegation of Dynasty Politics Backfired

The other reason often attributed to Mukul’s downfall is his reservations and differences with Didi over Abhishek Banerjee’s rising stature in the party as the Yuva Trinamool chief.

After all these years, the allegation seems to have some truth when Mukul raised the issue of “dynasty politics” of the Trinamool Congress post resignation. But where Mukul has gone wrong is his charge that the Trinamool Congress was born out of the Congress to fight the Congress.

He described it as unfortunate that the Trinamool Congress was now warming up to the Congress. The two parties should merge, Roy said sarcastically. The TMC leaders, as well as the Left, contend that the Trinamool Congress was born out of the Congress to fight the Communists and oust them from power. It was not born to fight the Congress.

‘Mukul, a Tubelight’

After CBI took over the Saradha investigation, Mukul Roy and Mamata Banerjee had yet another area of discord. It was learnt from Roy’s close associates that he wanted the Trinamool Congress to forge an understanding with the BJP for long term benefits, apart from neutralising the Saradha investigation.

He argued this would also help the state get better financial support from the central government. But obviously, Mamata Banerjee had other priorities and the fissures only widened.

Mamata Banerjee has kept mum over all these developments while her party secretary general, Partha Chatterjee, has launched the counter offensive against Mukul asking, “who is talking about dynastic politics. What about his son who is still an MLA in the Trinamool Congress.” Again, he called Mukul a “Tubelight. It has taken him so long to understand that the BJP is not a communal force,” Chatterjee ridiculed.

Also Read: TMC Suspends Mukul Roy for 6 Years After He Says He’ll Resign

(The writer is a Kolkata-based senior journalist. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

(Breathe In, Breathe Out: Are you finding it tough to breathe polluted air? Join hands with FIT in partnership with #MyRightToBreathe to find a solution to pollution. Send in your suggestions to [e-mail] or WhatsApp @ [phone])