KOLKATA: Why did the BJP leadership keep Mukul Roy inactive before the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls? This question has been doing rounds in the circles for the last few days since Roy's return to Trinamool Congress was officially announced. However, a recent internal report of BJP leaked selectively to the media has given some answers to these questions.
It was mainly because of the objections from RSS the central and state BJP leadership were forced to sideline Mukul Roy and keep him away from the election preparatory process in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections. When contacted BJP’s state general secretary, Sayantan Basu told ETV Bharat that if some people do sabotage from inside then the only adjective applicable for him is Mirzafar. “But thanks to RSS that had they not alerted our leadership in time then the damage could have been bigger. But it is a fact that the people in general rejected those who shifted from Trinamool to BJP before the elections and the results of the polls prove that,” he said.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Roy was appointed as the election committee convener for West Bengal by BJP. Starting from preparing the candidate list to finalizing the campaign strategy, Ray did all single- handedly then. BJP grabbed 18 out of 42 constituencies in the 2019 polls. The Union home minister, Amit Shah personally congratulated him for this grand success. So many were surprised when Roy was sidelined before the 2021 polls and questions were raised on why an efficient vote strategist like him was kept out of the process in 2021.
As per the internal report, before the 2021 polls, RSS leaders had sent a 35-page letter to Amit Shah detailing alleged clandestine contact between Roy and Trinamool leadership. That is why RSS suggested the BJP leadership not to brief Roy on many of the party’s internal matters, as per the internal report.
In fact, this suggestion from RSS prompted the BJP leadership to announce Roy’s name as the party candidate from Krisnagar (North) assembly constituency in the recently concluded polls. Although BJP’s central observer, Kailash Vijayvargiya was extremely close to Roy, he was also compelled to accept the directive from Amit Shah.
In fact, following the observation from RSS, Shah became skeptical about most of the leaders coming to BJP from Trinamool. So he decided to place different central leaders in charge of the different constituencies in West Bengal. Some of these heavyweight central leaders were BJP’s IT cell chief, Amit Malviya and Union petroleum minister, Dharmendra Pradhan among others.
BJP sources said that Roy’s importance in BJP was also curtailed to give a message to his followers in the party. Even the candidate list presented by Roy was also scrutinized and amended substantially. “Although he was retained in the party his role was curtailed to a great extent,” a BJP leader said on condition of anonymity. He also said that the party’s central leadership had apprehended well in advance that Roy will again shift to Trinamool if the latter is voted back to power again.
