Khela Hobe once again in Bengal with Mukul Roy, Mamata Banerjee reunion

‘Khela’ is on in West Bengal, this time in the form of reverse migration from the BJP to Trinamool, months after Mamata Banerjee swept to power in third straight win bagging 213 seats in the 292-member assembly. Mukul Roy, who was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national vice-president, and his son Subharangshu quit the BJP and did ‘ghar wapsi (homecoming)’, joining the TMC on Friday evening in presence of the top boss, the chief minister.

Soon after joining the Trinamool camp, Mukul Roy said, “In the present circumstances, no one will stay in the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

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Mukul Roy’s parting is seen as a big jolt for the BJP, which has in the last few weeks, seen a flurry of exits of several turncoat politicians, who switched from TMC to the BJP ahead of West Bengal Assembly polls. Now that their grand plans with their new party didn’t materialise, it’s time for ‘ghar wapsi’. Some of them even apologised, publicly, for their decision to quit the Mamata Banerjee-led party. In the high-stake West Bengal elections, the BJP bagged 77 seats.

Mukul Roy, who was among the top faces of the BJP in Bengal, won the Krishnanagar North seat in the assembly polls. However, his son Subhrangshu, who was also a former TMC legislator and contested on the BJP ticket this time lost from Bijpur seat in southeast Bengal.

Mukul Roy, a close aide of Mamata Banerjee, had ditched its party of 27 years TMC in 2017 and joined the BJP. He was appointed the BJP national vice president in the run-up to the Bengal assembly elections. Roy had left the TMC over alleged disagreements with the TMC’s top leadership on multiple issues, including differences with Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek.

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Mukul Roy is also an accused in the Narada sting operation case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Just two days after the crushing defeat of the BJP in the state elections, Mukul Roy’s son Subharangshu wrote on Facebook that self-criticism was “more necessary than criticising a government elected by people.” The message was seen as a dig at the West Bengal BJP.