Hyderabad: It was a sweltering afternoon in Nandigram and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee was campaigning in Nandigram. The seat, which she had chosen to take on her new-found opposition in the Assembly elections, the BJP.
The eight-phase election process was yet to take off and Mamata was recounting some of her earlier colleagues who had switched sides and joined the saffron camp ahead of the polls. Amid loud cheers as well as jeers, Mamata had only two words for her one time most trusted lieutenant, her once number two in the party, Mukul Roy -- “ Bechara Mukul '' (loosely translated as, poor thing Mukul).
And that was it. All through the blistering high voltage campaign and diatribe between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP campaigners, Mamata Banerjee had never uttered the name of Mukul Roy, the national vice-president of BJP and also a party candidate for Krishnanagar Uttar Assembly seat.
On the other side of the ring, all through his campaign, Mukul remained mostly restricted within the jurisdiction of Krishnanagar barring a couple of occasions when he was seen sharing dais with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Medinipur or Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Brigade Parade grounds in Kolkata. But, even his detractors could not find a single word uttered by him against Mamata Banerjee during the campaign.
Was it only mutual respect or a broader canvass was being laid out for a final painting?
Things started gaining momentum from earlier this month when on June 2, the newly appointed Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee suddenly paid a visit to a private medical facility in south Kolkata where Krishna Roy, wife of Mukul Roy, is undergoing treatment due to Covid related complications. Her condition is stated to be extremely critical. Mukul's son Subhranshu greeted Abhishek with open arms and was of all praise for the courtesy call. Subhranshu's response to two other developments were markedly tepid – first, a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mukul and BJP's Bengal president Dilip Ghosh rushing to the hospital to enquire about his mother's health.
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Today when Mukul entered Trinamool Bhavan after a gap of around three years, even Mamata Banerjee could not hold back emotions, albeit briefly. “No one can stay well in BJP. It is a party of zamindars and feudal lords. Even Mukul is visibly looking weak. He needs care.”
Mukul's ride with the BJP had always been a bumpy one. His distancing with Trinamool Congress started way back in 2015, around the same time when Mamata was gradually bringing her nephew Abhishek to the forefront. Mukul, then a Rajya Sabha MP, met with Arun Jaitley and Kailash Vijayvargiya. Trinamool promptly suspended one of their oldest party loyalists for six years as a disciplinary move. But, by 2017 the relationship between Trinamool and Mukul Roy soured more and on October 11, Roy resigned as a Rajya Sabha member. On the 3rd of the following month, he formally joined BJP. Mamata had lost one of her most trusted persons to her arch-rival.
Mukul Roy, the quintessential organisation man of the Trinamool Congress, who knew the party and the state like the back of his hands, surprisingly saw that two crucial elections passed right from under his nose – the 2017 Panchayat polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections – but no one in the BJP gave him any decisive role. The man on whom Mamata used to rest all organisational responsibilities, was suddenly a person without a portfolio.
BJP did make some good performance in the 2019 general elections and finally, three years after joining the saffron brigade, Mukul Roy was made the party's national vice-president on September 26, 2020. The 2021 Assembly elections were knocking at the doors and again, mysteriously, Mukul found himself tucked away in one Assembly seat, Krishnanagar Uttar, wherefrom the party made him the candidate. The limelight was hogged by Dilip Ghosh and obviously Suvendu Adhikari, who joined BJP on December 19, 2020. Mukul, who was practically instrumental in addicting the requisite glamour quotient to BJP's candidate list with names like Srabanti Chattopadhyay and Yash Dasgupta, was yet again being relegated to a mere candidate.
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But, Mukul won the elections. And so did Suvendu. Interestingly, the BJP again ignored the much astute and senior Mukul Roy and made Suvendu Adhikari the Leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, where it had become the opposition party. The message was probably loud and clear for the political weather-battered Mukul Roy.
Be it the Narada sting operation scam where he was accused of accepting a bribe or the West Bengal CID naming him as a conspirator along with BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar in the murder case of Trinamool Congress MLA Satyajit Biswas in Nadia district, Mukul has been a regular visitor to the courts. But, the now Trinamool leader himself had summed up those rounds in his usual terse commentary style, “I have 44 cases against me. I am not worried. They cannot arrest me.” Even CBI officers have also said that in the Narada sting video, Mukul Roy was not seen taking money nor there is evidence of him accepting money. The proof against him is very weak.
Mukul knows. So does his son Subhranshu. Both Abhishek and Subhranshu were close friends while growing up. Welcoming Mukul back to the party fold, when Mamata today said, “Mukul is our family member, Trinamool is like a big family,” she knows what an old horse like Mukul Roy can do in the coming days with Trinamool eyeing a broader national stage before the 2024 general elections. How many more switchovers Mamata will allow to return is anybody's guess. But, with Mukul Roy, she has undoubtedly shepherded back her lone sheep to the flock and has left the BJP guessing.
