“Will Quit if Proved I Pleaded with Amit Shah for Restoring TMCs National Status:” Mamata

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Apr 19: In yet another battle of attrition between the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her one-time close associate and now the leader of the opposition in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, the Trinamool Congress supremo said she would quit as the chief minister if Adhikari could authenticate his claim of she having pleaded with the union home minister Amit Shah for restoration of TMC’s national party status.

She said on Wednesday that she would step down if it was proved that she had called Amit Shah after her party lost its national party status last week. “I was surprised and shocked… I will resign if it is proven that I called up Amit Shah over Trinamool’s national party status,” Ms Banerjee told reporters at a news briefing at the state secretariat.

The Trinamool was stripped of its national party status by the Election Commission earlier this month after a review of its eligibility. Adhikari had claimed on Tuesday that Ms Banerjee had dialled Shah to request him to intervene and restore the Trinamool’s national status. Adhikari, a former close aide of Ms Banerjee who defected to the BJP before the 2021 assembly elections, “is lying,” the Chief Minister said.

Ms Banerjee also commented on the intensifying efforts by opposition parties to team up against the BJP ahead of next year’s national elections. “Sometimes silence is golden. Don’t think the opposition is not sitting together. We all exist, and everybody is maintaining relations with each other. When it comes, it will happen like a tornado,” she said.

Meanwhile, the veteran TMC-turned BJP-turned TMC leader Mukul Roy, whose family claimed he was “ill and mentally unstable,” has expressed his desire to return to the BJP. Roy, who kept the political pundits guessing over his next move, on Tuesday night said he was still a BJP legislator and would like to meet Amit Shah as he was keen on returning to the party.

Roy, who on Monday night travelled to New Delhi for “some personal work”, even as his family initially claimed that he was “missing”, only to later accuse the BJP of indulging in dirty politics using the TMC leader who is unwell and not in the “right frame of mind.”

“I am a BJP legislator. I want to be with the BJP. The party has made arrangements for my stay here. I want to meet Amit Shah and speak to (party president) J P Nadda,” he told the media on Tuesday evening. “I was not keeping well for quite some time, so I was away from politics. But right now, I am fine and would again be active in politics,” Roy said. He said he is “100 per cent confident that he would never be associated with the TMC.”

The drama over Roy’s whereabouts evolved since late Monday evening when his family members claimed he was “untraceable.” The former railway minister’s son Subhrangshu had said his father was “untraceable” and “missing” since late Monday evening. Subhrangshu, who too had switched over from BJP to TMC along with his father, said his father was “extremely unwell” and suffers from “dementia and Parkinson’s disease.”

“My father is not in the right frame of mind. I would request everyone not to do politics with an unwell person. After he went missing, I had also filed a police complaint last night,” he told reporters. Roy’s son also said his father had undergone “brain surgery” last month and failed to recognise even family members and close associates.

Subhrangshu claimed when he came to know on Monday night that the TMC leader was travelling to Delhi by air, he had requested the authorities to de-board him, but by then, “the flight had taken off.” “The chief minister herself had called up to inquire about my father’s well-being,” Subhrangshu, said.

After reaching Delhi Roy told reporters that he reached the national capital but had “no specific agenda.” Speculations over Roy re-joining the BJP gained momentum after BJP national secretary Anupam Hazra made a cryptic single word Facebook post: “Comeback.” Reacting to Hazra’s comments, Subhrangshu said it was an attempt to malign the TMC and its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

State parliamentary affairs minister and TMC leader Sovandeb Chattopadhyay accused the BJP of indulging in dirty politics. “I have known Mukul Roy for the last several decades. He is so ill that he doesn’t recognise people and cannot complete a sentence properly. Now If the BJP wants to pursue politics by using an unwell person, we condemn such dirty politics,” he said.

But contrary to what Hazra said, the senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said the saffron camp was not interested in “inducting Mr Roy back into the party.” Mukul Roy joined the BJP in 2017 following differences with the TMC leadership. He was made BJP national vice president in 2020. He won from the Krishnanagar North assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 2021 and returned to the TMC just a month after the results were announced, complaining of “ill-treatment” by the saffron party. He, however, didn’t resign as an MLA. Since his return to the TMC, he has remained away from the public glare. Roy also resigned as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in the West Bengal assembly last year citing ill health.