Tathagata Roy's return to Bengal politics likely to change fabric of BJP's final push for power
KOLKATA: Former Tripura governor and BJP’s West Bengal president Tathagata Roy’s re-entry into active politics on one of the country’s most volatile soil, West Bengal, is likely to change fabric of the saffron camp’s final push for power in Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s citadel ahead of crucial 2021 Assembly elections.
As Roy is all set to begin his second innings in Bengal’s political arena, it has added certain significance amid rife political speculations on who would become BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in the state for the upcoming polls.
Some of the BJP supporters also floated a Facebook page portraying Roy as the chief ministerial face in crucial 2021 Assembly elections. Roy, however, said he doesn’t support such an act.
The party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya recently said that the BJP would fight the Assembly elections without projecting any individual as the chief minister candidate. He made it clear that after securing victory in Bengal, the elected MLAs would decide the chief minister of the state.
After reaching Kolkata on Sunday afternoon, Roy is counting his experience as the flagbearer of the saffron camp in Bengal. He was the president of the BJP’s Bengal chapter from 2002 to 2006 and a member of the party’s national executive from 2002 to 2015 before he assumed office as the governor of Tripura.
"Roy’s entry in Bengal BJP is said to be significant as it happened at a time when the party’s internal crack surfaced during a meeting between the BJP’s national leadership and Bengal functionaries. In the first meeting of a week-long schedule at the national capital, senior party leader Mukul Roy expressed his discontent after the party’s state president Dilip Ghosh projected the saffron camp’s performance in the next year’s elections claiming it will pick up 190 out of 294 seats, A few days later, a section MPs expressed their displeasure over the issue of Ghosh’s dominance in the party’s daily affairs," said a senior BJP leader.
Fiercely active on social media platforms, the former Tripura governor ran into controversy for taking jibe at Dilip Ghosh for making "illogical" public statements. "In West Bengal, the north Indian culture of Gai Hamari Mata Hain (the cow is our mother) will not work. Statements such as cow’s milk has gold or cow urine can cure Covid-19 will not help the BJP in Bengal," he said earlier in August.
Roy, however, said he would act according to his party’s decision. "After joining the party, I am all set to play any role that my party will assign to me."