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Tag: Mukul Roy

  • BJP national vice president Mukul Roy returns to TMC; Mamata welcomes him

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: In a blow to the prestige of the saffron brigade, Bharatiya Janata Partys national Vice President Mukul Roy along with son Subranshu, re-joined the Trinamool Congress on Friday, with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other leaders of the state’s ruling party welcoming him back to the fold.

    Roy, who was closeted with Banerjee in Trinamool Bhavan before his formal re-induction in the party he helped set up, said he was “happy to see all known faces again”.

    Addressing a press meet after the re-joining ceremony, Banerjee said Roy was threatened and tortured in the BJP, and that, in turn, affected his health.

    “Mukul’s return proves that the BJP does not let anyone live in peace and put’s undue pressure on everyone,” the chief minister said.

    Roy was seated on Banerjees left hand, with Abhishek seated after him, while Partha Chatterjee, another top TMC leader sat on her right, indicative according to TMC sources, of the partys future pecking order.

    Speculation had been rife for some time on a possible home coming by Mukul Roy who had crossed over to BJP in 2017 after being charged in the Narada tape sting, ever since Banerjees nephew Abhishek visited his wife at a city hospital earlier this month.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promptly after Abhisheks visit, rung up to enquire about Roys wifes health, seen by political observers as an attempt to retain him within the BJP-fold.

    Interestingly, at Fridays re-joining ceremony, both Banerjee and Roy claimed that they never had any differences.

    The chief minister said we will consider the case of those who had left TMC with Mukul for BJP and want to come back.

    A signal that this may be the start of more defections from BJPs Bengal unit.

    However, Banerjee clarified that TMC politicians and workers who left to join the BJP just ahead of the April-May assembly elections will not be taken back.

    Roy, once the second-in-command of the TMC, was removed from the post of the party’s national general secretary in February, 2015, sometime after the Narada sting was carried out by investigative journalists where many politicians were allegedly caught accepting wads of cash from a fictitious company.

    He joined the BJP in November, 2017.

    The move to bring him back possibly started when Banerjee at an election rally in late March had termed his conduct as not so bad.

    This was in contrast to the chief ministers other election speeches, where she had branded turncoat TMC members such as Suvendu Adhikari as `Mir Jafars, after the infamous Bengal general who betrayed Bengal’s Nawab Siraj ud Dowlah in the battle of Plassey against Lord Robert Clives army.

    TMC will selectively take back people who crossed over.

    The aim will be to organisationally weaken BJP but at the same time it will not want too many turncoats back as this would be seen as rewarding dissidence, said Rajat Roy, well-known political analyst and member of the Calcutta Research Group.

    Mukul Roy is a special case as he is known to be an organisational brain.

    Several former TMC MLAs including Dipendu Biswas and Sonali Guha have in recent past sent letters regretting their decision to join the BJP and sought to return back to the partys fold.

    Guha, who at one time was considered close to Banerjee, made an impassioned plea on camera seeking the chief ministers forgiveness.

    Guha, a four-time legislator from Satgachia in South 24 Parganas, had also written in a letter the way fish cannot stay out of water, I will not be able to live without you, Didi.

    Even before the formal entry of Mukul Roy, BJPs national Vice President into Trinamool Congress, BJP leaders reacted angrily to the desertion.

    BJP leader Dilip Ghosh reacting to news of Mukul Roys re-entry into Trinamool Congress, said he was not sure the party would lose anything from the move given that he was unsure whether we gained anything from Roys entry three- and-half years back.

  • Mamata welcomes Mukul Roy’s ‘ghar wapsi’ to cause damage to BJP, not to strengthen TMC

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s decision to welcome BJP’s national vice-president Mukul Roy’s ‘ghar wapsi’ on Friday appears to be more focused on causing damage to the saffron camp than strengthening her own party. 

    Sources in the ruling party said the induction of TMC’s former second-in-command, the first blow to the BJP since its poor performance in the recent Assembly elections, would deliver a message for others who defected to the saffron camp. “Many TMC leaders jumped ship and became prominent BJP faces. Roy’s return to the TMC will deliver a message to the turncoats which includes at least three MPs and several MLAs of the BJP,” said a senior TMC leader. 

    Bringing the saffron camp’s “Chanakya” back to its fold, the ruling party is now aiming to shake the BJP’s foundation in Bengal which already received a jolt in the recent Assembly elections. The saffron camp emerged as the TMC’s only opposition in the Assembly polls. It bagged 77 seats, much behind the party’s projection of more than 200 seats, and the Left Front and Congress have no representative in the state Assembly. The newly-formed Indian Secular Force, an ally of LF-Congress, secured victory in only one constituency. In a landslide victory, the TMC bagged 213 seats in the House of 294 MLAs. 

    “The triumphant performance of the TMC was without Roy, who used to be known for managing elections. Our party has nothing to gain by inducting Roy but it will damage the BJP organisational setup. It was Roy who had poached many of our leaders on behalf of the saffron camp. It is expected that those who followed Roy’s footprint will shortly make a beeline to return to the TMC,” said another TMC leader.  

    The ruling party, however, is yet to make a decision about other turncoats willing to return to the TMC. “Mamata Banerjee will take the final decision. She will decide whether all turncoats will be allowed to rejoin the party or they will be inducted selectively,” said the leader.     

    Since Roy had shifted his political allegiance to the BJP in 2017, a total of 33 TMC MLAs joined the BJP and the exodus continued till before the Assembly elections held in March-April. Roy’s return to the TMC is the first defection from the saffron camp since the election.

  • BJP leader Mukul Roy leaves for TMC Bhavan amid speculation of return to Mamata’s party

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: BJP national vice president Mukul Roy left his home for the Trinamool Congress headquarters here on Friday afternoon amid speculation that he might return to the ruling party in West Bengal.

    Roy, the former second-in-command of the TMC who joined the saffron party in November 2017, has been distancing himself from the BJP for the last several days.

    ALSO READ | Buzz grows on BJP vice-president Mukul Roy’s return to TMC after Abhishek Banerjee’s hospital visit

    Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee also left her Kalighat residence, as heightened security measures were noticed at the Trinamool Congress Bhavan off the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass here.

    Asked by reporters where he was going as he left his home, Roy answered “Trinamool Bhavan”.

  • Buzz grows on BJP vice-president Mukul Roy’s return to TMC after Abhishek Banerjee’s hospital visit

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The buzz that BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy may return to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has grown louder since Wednesday’s visit by TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee to the hospital where Mukul’s wife is undergoing COVID treatment.

    According to sources, Abhishek enquired about her health and wished her a speedy recovery. Though Mukul’s wife, Krishna, was admitted to the hospital on May 14, no BJP leader had bothered to pay her a visit. Abhishek’s visit, understandably, has set the alarm bells ringing in the saffron camp.

    Within two hours of his visit, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh changed his schedule and rushed to the hospital. The following day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself dialed Mukul and enquired about his wife’s health. 

    Amid all this, some political observers in the state have linked Abhishek’s visit with one of the statements Mamata made while campaigning for the election, in which she compared Mukul and Suvendhu Adhikari.  “Mukul is facing injustice by them (BJP). He has been fielded in the constituency which is far away from his hometown. What I can say he (Mukul) is much better than him (Suvendu),” she had said. 

    If one reads that statement and Abhishek’s hospital visit together, the panic in the BJP is understandable. “Abhishek’s visit to the hospital was enough to scare the BJP leaders about a possible re-run of the defection episode. And this time, the exodus would be from the saffron camp. If a national vice-president of BJP changes his political allegiance, it will definitely send a wrong message to the electorate and will damage the party’s image nationally,” said Bishnupriya Dutta Gupta, a political science professor.

    “Though we have differences, his (Abhishek’s) courtesy is exemplary,” said Subhrangshu, Mukul’s son, who joined the BJP last year.

  • Mukul Roy suppressed Narada case information in poll affidavit, claims Trinamool

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday alleged that while filing nomination for the recently held assembly election, BJP vice-president and West Bengal MLA Mukul Roy suppressed in the affidavit that he was an accused in the Narada sting tape case.

    Another BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari mentioned the Narada case in his affidavit, but he did not specify the sections under which it was filed, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh claimed.

    While two TMC senior ministers and an MLA, besides a former party leader, were arrested by the CBI in the Narada sting tape case on Monday, Roy and Adhikari were not, though they too were accused in the case.

    The CBI also filed the chargesheet against the four in a special court on May 17.

    The TMC has claimed that the BJP is behind the episode.

    “It is necessary for a candidate to mention cases against him or her in the affidavit. Mukul Roy has suppressed the Narada case completely in his affidavit,” Ghosh said.

    ALSO READ | Narada case: Arrested Trinamool leaders to stay in jail; Governor raps Mamata government over protests in front of Raj Bhavan

    The TMC spokesperson wondered whether Roy had got the BJP’s assurance beforehand that he would not be touched in the Narada case.

    “In sharp contrast, our three arrested candidates – Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim and Madan Mitra – had referred to the Narada case in their affidavits,” he said.

    Ghosh said that the party will soon decide what steps would be taken on Roy’s “suppression of information in the affidavit”, but the BJP leader should resign from the assembly on moral grounds.

    Roy was not available for comments.

    The BJP-led government at the Centre has failed to control the COVID-19 pandemic and is now trying to divert peoples attention by “unnecessarily” arresting the leaders when coronavirus cases are surging, the TMC spokesperson claimed.

    Ghosh said that the TMC will not comment on the ongoing hearing at the Calcutta High Court on the Narada case and it has full faith in the judiciary.

    State BJP spokesman Shamik Bhattacharya said that the CBI was doing its job in the Narada sting tape case and the saffron party was unfairly being dragged into the issue.

    ALSO READ | CM Mamata, law minister Ghatak made parties in CBI petition before HC to transfer Narada case 

    The sting operation was conducted by journalist Mathew Samuel of Narada News, a web portal, in 2014 wherein some people resembling TMC ministers, MPs and MLAs were seen receiving money from representatives of a fictitious company in lieu of favours.

    At that time, the four arrested politicians were ministers in the Mamata Banerjee government.

    The sting operation was made public ahead of the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal.

    The Calcutta High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the sting operation in March 2017.

  • My fight would continue as a soldier of BJP: Mukul Roy

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: BJP vice president and its senior West Bengal leader Mukul Roy on Saturday rejected speculation that he may quit the party, asserting that his fight would continue as a “soldier of BJP to restore democracy in our state”.

    Once considered the second most powerful leader in the Trinamool Congress before he fell out with its head and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and joined the BJP in 2017, Roy took to Twitter to scotch speculation about his next political move.

    “My fight would continue as a soldier of BJP to restore democracy in our state. I would request everyone to put the concoctions and conjectures to rest. I am resolute in my political path,” he said.

    Roy has been elected as a BJP MLA during the recent state assembly polls in which the TMC scored a big win over its saffron rival.

    BJP president J P Nadda praised Roy’s statement, saying this is exemplary for every BJP worker and will guide everyone.

  • Counting begins for Bengal assembly polls under tight security

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Counting of votes polled in the West Bengal assembly elections began at 8 am on Sunday under tight security and strict adherence to safety protocols, amid a raging second wave of COVID-19.

    Exit polls have forecast a tight contest between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP in the eight-phase elections to the 294-member assembly.

    The counting will decide the electoral fate of 2,116 candidates including nominees of the Left-Congress-Indian Secular Front alliance.

    The exercise is underway in 108 counting centres spread across the 23 districts of the state, where a three- tier security arrangement has been put in place.

    At least 292 observers have been appointed and 256 companies of central forces deployed at the counting centres.

    Polling to 292 assembly seats was held in eight phases from March 27 to April 29.

    Voting in Shamsherganj and Jangipur seats in Murshidabad district was postponed due to the death of some candidates.

    Polling in these two seats will now be held on May 16 and votes counted on May 19.

    In view of the rising number of coronavirus cases in the state, the Election Commission has decided to place tables at the counting halls in such a way that social distancing norms are maintained.

    All the EVMs and VVPATs at the counting centres will be sanitised before the commencement of the process.

    Of the state’s 294 assembly constituencies, the most keenly watched will be Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district where Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is contesting her protege-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP.

    Banerjee, who is seeking a third term in office, has left Bhabanipur constituency in Kolkata to fight from Nandigram, the epicentre of an anti-land acquisition movement that catapulted her party to power in 2011 ending the 34- year-long Left Front rule.

    However, 10 years later, a number of leaders have left the party and joined the BJP ahead of the election which was blotched by violence, vicious personal attacks and jingoistic fulminations.

    Exit polls were divided in their forecast for the West Bengal election, where the BJP ran a high-octane campaign in its bid to capture power in the state for the first time by ending Banerjee’s 10-year-long reign.

    An average polling of 81.87 per cent was recorded in the eight phases.

     

  • TMC hints at role of BJP insider in leaking ‘Mukul Roy-Shishir Bajoria audio clip’

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Sunday hinted that the audio tape in which BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy purportedly told another leader Shishir Bajoria about how to influence the Election Commission was leaked by someone in the saffron camp.

    Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s allegation that the release of the audio clip by the Mamata Banerjee-led party proved that phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in the state, the TMC’s national spokesperson Derek OBrien said that it was up to the BJP to find out who had leaked it.

    “If there is a conversation between A and B, logic demands that either A or B has leaked the information,” O’Brien told a press conference in Kolkata.

    “We were so far thinking that Khela Hobe (game will happen) means the battle between the TMC and the BJP. Now there seems to be another group. Let them (BJP) figure it out by themselves,” he said indicating that there is a disgruntled camp in the saffron party which has leaked the audio clip.

    O’Brien also asked the members of the media to find out who was behind the leaking of the audio tape.

    The TMC on Saturday released to the media an audio clip of the purported conversation between Roy and Bajoria, who is also an industrialist.

    In the audio clip, Roy is heard telling Bajoria to convince the EC to allow polling agents, even from outside a given constituency, to function at all polling stations.

    “See, we have to include this point while meeting the EC. We have to say that this rule that polling agents can only be deputed in their localities should be changed. The only criteria should be that the person is a citizen of the state. The BJP won’t be able to have its agents in a large number of booths otherwise,” Roy purportedly told Bajoria.

    Polling agents of parties, under the existent rules, are allowed only at booths in localities where they normally reside.

    The rule had been relaxed last week to allow agents to be appointed from any part of an assembly constituency.

    At a press conference in New Delhi, the Union home minister hit out at the TMC claiming that the release of the audio shows that phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in West Bengal.

    The TMC claimed that the audio clip had “blown the lid off” the nexus between the BJP and the Election Commission.

    O’Brien said that the poll panel apparently changed the time tested provision at the behest of the BJP which doesn’t have enough people to deploy as agents in every booth and the TMC opposed this alteration.

    “The BJP is literally desperate. They (BJP) have got together all agencies. They are doing this to counter Mamata Banerjee and her development initiatives,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.

    However, no such ploy will be able to stop Banerjee’s victory and “the gas balloon of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Shah will be deflated on May 2” when votes will be counted, he said.

    Referring to Shah’s assertion that the BJP will win over 200 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, O’Brien said that the senior BJP leader has a poor track record in making such predictions.

    “Shah had predicted a landslide victory for the BJP in Bihar in 2015 assembly polls and his party got much fewer seats. In Delhi, the BJP had got a few seats in 2015 and 2020 assembly polls. Similar is the case with Jharkhand and Maharashtra in recent times,” he said.

  • BJP announces candidate list for last 4 phases of Bengal polls, fields Mukul Roy to contest from Krishnanagar

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The BJP, after holding a marathon meeting with the party’s Bengal functionaries in New Delhi in the wake of sporadic demonstrations over the issue of previous list of candidates, announces candidate list for 157 seats fielding the party’s national vice-president Mukul Roy, one sitting MP and 10 Trinamool Congress turncoat MLAs.

    The list also includes the wife of former state Congress president Somen Mitra, two actors and four Bengal functionaries.

    The candidate list pertains to Assembly seats where voting will be held in last four phases. The BJP is yet to announce the names of candidates in 14 seats out of total 294.

    The saffron camp pitted Roy in Krishnagar Uttar Assembly constituency from where the party had bagged a lead of more than 55,000 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Roy’s son, an MLA who defected to the BJP last year, is contesting from his own Bijpur constituency.  

    Shortly after the candidate list was announced, Sikha Mitra Chowdhury, wife of the former state Congress president, said she would not contest. ‘’I have not joined the BJP yet and no one from the BJP consulted me before Including my name in the list of candidates. I belong to a family belongs to Congress background. Previously, I joined the TMC but there is no question of contesting on a BJP ticket. Congress and BJP belong to two completely different poles,’’ she said.  

    The saffron camp fielded its sitting MP from Ranaghat, Jagannath Sarkar, in Shantipur Assembly constituency in Nadia district. So far, five sitting MPs, including one nominated in Rajya Sabha, have been pitted to take on TMC candidates.

    In Bhowanipur Assembly constituency, from where chief minister was elected in two previous elections, the BJP fielded actor Rudranil Ghosh, who recently defected to the BJP from the ruling party’s fold. Another Bengali film actor Parno Mitra, who joined the BJP in 2019, have been pitted from Baranagar Assembly constituency in north 24-Parganas.

    The party also fielded four minority candidates, including its minority cell head Mafuza Khatun, in the Muslim dominated constituencies in Malda and Murshidabad districts. The BJP also pitted

  • A day after PM’s Kolkata visit, Trinamool faces fresh spate of defections as it loses Malda Zilla Parishad

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: Barely 72 hours after the Trinamool Congress announced the full list of candidates fielded in the upcoming Assembly elections, one of the contestants, in a bizarre move, joined the BJP on Monday along with the ruling party’s four other incumbent MLAs, who were denied tickets.

    The defection took place at the party’s Hastings election office in south Kolkata.

    Sarala Murmu was in the list announced by TMC supremo on Friday last week and was selected for the Habibpur Assembly constituency, reserved for a scheduled tribe candidate, in north Bengal’s Malda district.

    Sensing her defeat, Sarala decided to jump ship and join the BJP, sources in the TMC said.

    “Most of the TMC functionaries in the constituency where I was fielded have already joined the BJP. In the TMC, I was given a post but no work to do,” said Sarala.

    Noticing Sarala’s suspicious move on Sunday night, the TMC issued a statement announcing Pradip Baskey as the party’s new candidate and cited her health condition as the reason.

    “We anticipated Sarala’s move because she did not want to contest from Habibpur as she thought BJP’s victory is sure there. She wanted to contest from another seat which is Old Malda but the party refused,” said a TMC leader.

    Among others, four time MLA from Satgachia and once Mamata’s trusted colleague Sonali Guha, Singur’s octogenarian legislator Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Shibpur MLA Jatu Lahiri and footballer-turned lawmaker from Basirhat (Dakshin) Dipendu Biswas also joined the saffron camp.

    A number of ruling party’s functionaries from Malda zilla parishad and South Dum Dum municipality, too, shifted sides and came under the umbrella of the BJP.

    Bengali actress Tanushree Chakraborty also joined the BJP on Monday. 

    Bhattacharya and Lahiri were denied tickets as the party decided not to field octogenarian candidates in the upcoming poll and both of them come under the bracket of the age restriction.

    Trinamool also lost control of Malda zilla parishad.

    This was TMC’s second largest single-day exodus after political heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari along with 35 TMC leaders, including five MLAs and an MP, switched over to BJP December last year.

    The BJP took control of the 38-member Malda Zilla Parishad after its 23 members changed sides during the day.

    With Bhattacharya joining the saffron camp, TMC has lost both its prominent faces of the Singur and Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement to the saffron camp.

    The movement had catapulted TMC to power ending 34 years of Left Front rule in the state.

    Suvendu Adhikari will now take on Banerjee, his former mentor at Nandigram.

    BJP state president Dilip Ghosh handed the party flags to them during the day in the presence of Adhikari and the party’s national vice-president Mukul Roy.

    “The TMC is no longer a party of the masses. It has become a family-run party. Honest people have no place in the TMC,” Bhattacharya said.

    Guha, who had broken down immediately after getting news of her omission from the list of candidates of TMC released on Friday, said her former party had tried to speak to her.

    “But I was no longer interested. I had given more than a hundred per cent to TMC. Didi (Banerjee) and others know that very well. I will now devote myself equally to the BJP in whichever way they use me,” she said.

    Murmu, who is known to be a Adhikari loyalist, hit out at TMC saying it does not have an atmosphere to work for the masses.

    Actor Tanusree Chakraborty also joined the BJP.

    Reacting to Monday’s exodus, senior TMC leader Sougata Roy said it showed that the defecting TMC leaders do not have any moral values and are only hungry for posts.

    “It’s a good riddance. Just because these leaders were not given tickets, they quit TMC,” Roy said.

    An elated BJP said the “beginning of the end of TMC has already begun” and the party will disintegrate soon.

    “It is only a matter of time before TMC disintegrates. Those who want to fight against TMC should join us,” Ghosh said.

    He, however, said it is not necessary that those who have joined BJP will be given tickets for the coming assembly polls.

    Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the BJP bagged 18 seats, just four less than the ruling TMC and emerged as its main challenger in Bengal, 24 MLAs of the Trinamool Congress, two TMC MP, three belonging to the Congress and the CPI(M) each and one from CPI has crossed over to the saffron camp.

    However, except for the former state cabinet ministers – Suvendu Adhikari, Rajib Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi none of them resigned as MLAs or MP.

    Election for 294-seat Bengal Assembly is poised to be a stiff contest between the TMC and the BJP.

    The election will be held in eight phases, beginning with polling for 30 seats on March 27.

    Votes will be counted on May 2.

    (With PTI Inputs)