Kolkata: Once the most trusted aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Mukul Roy switched sides to emerge as the chief strategist of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lok Sabha election campaign in West Bengal.
The BJP pulled off a coup in the elections by winning 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.
Since then, Roy, the former general secretary of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), has been making efforts to consolidate his position in the BJP, a party he once bitterly opposed.
In the last week of June, Roy headed off to the Amarnath Yatra ostensibly to improve “the BJP’s electoral fortune in Bengal”. There was little doubt that it was also an attempt to impress the party top brass.
Roy has also spearheaded the BJP’s efforts to woo ruling party MLAs; he has a reputation of being adept at poaching rivals.
On 13 July, he publicly announced that he had a list of 107 TMC MLAs ready to jump ship. “These 107 MLAs will join BJP soon,” he said. Three weeks on, however, none of that has materialised.
Instead, Roy’s influence in the BJP has been on the wane. Caught in a tug of war between the BJP’s old guard in the state and the party’s recent recruits, Roy’s recruitment drive has been put on hold for nearly a week now.
But more importantly, despite being politically productive for the BJP, Roy has not been handed any leadership position in the party till now. He continues to remain the chief of the election management committee, a position he was handed before the elections and is also a member of the BJP national executive committee. None of these are leadership roles.
Roy, however, insists that he is quite ‘respected’ in the party. “I am very happy in BJP. My opinions and suggestions matter here. I am respected,” he told ThePrint. “Moreover, I have access to the top brass. I am absolutely fine and have no issues. There are some people who are trying to spread such rumours to destabilise my position in the party. These are baseless.”
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Factions in the West Bengal BJP
Roy is believed to be close to BJP national general secretary and West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya. He has also managed access to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
This has however left a section of Bengal BJP leaders jittery.
“We have been with the BJP for over a decade and know the party, its structure, its values and ideology better than any new recruit. There are some defectors like Mukul Roy who are trying to play big,” said a senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named. “Some leaders amongst us are in touch with him. But we can assure you that Roy will never be given any important position here. Wait and watch. Things will change in the next six months.”
Those who know him say Roy has a knack for creating factions in a party. “Mukulda wanted more power in TMC. He is almost the father of factions in the party,” said a TMC MLA from North 24 Parganas, Roy’s home district. “We will never deny his contribution. Apart from Didi, he was the one who made the party. But things went drastically wrong when we saw the conflict of interest was rising in the party.”
Professor Biswanath Chakraborty, a political analyst, believes the former Mamata aide may be angling for a national role. “As far as we understand, the BJP top brass has clearly instructed him to stop poaching from other parties. He is almost notorious for this… He also created factions in the party,” Chakraborty said. “But as a manager, he is excellent. That is his skill. As of now, it seems the BJP might move him to Rajya Sabha. He is not interested in state politics and wants to do something in national politics.”
Legal troubles
If factional battles weren’t enough, Roy has to contend with legal troubles.
He had been named in the Saradha chit fund scam and had even been summoned by the CBI in 2015. Since his switch to the BJP too, Roy has been grilled a few times.
Roy faces two criminal cases lodged with the Kolkata Police, apart from a dozen cases pending in district courts.
The first FIR was registered with the Bowbazaar police station (Central Kolkata) on 13 July 2018 over unaccounted cash while in the second case relates to graft and has Roy as the prime accused.
According to a senior police officer, the first case relates to a chance seizure of Rs 79.90 lakh from a local businessman. On being questioned, the businessman allegedly named Roy as the owner of the cash. Roy was served a notice under Section 160 of the CrPC, which he allegedly kept evading.
After a local court issued an arrest warrant against him, he moved the SC and got protection against arrest. However, a team of Kolkata Police officers grilled him for over two hours at his residence in Delhi. According to the police officer, Roy can be interrogated again as his responses were mostly “incomplete”.
In the second case, filed in January, the victim has accused Roy of seeking Rs 46 lakh as a bribe, way back in 2015, to make him a member of Zonal Railway’s Users Consultative Committee. Cases of criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating were slapped against Roy.
Reacting to the cases filed against him, Roy told The Print, “This is a part of Mamata Banerjee’s vindictiveness. These cases are nothing but political vendetta against me. I am not the only target they have, hundreds of such false cases were filed against many BJP leaders and workers working in the state.”
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