Rumblings in BJP over joining of ex-TMC MLA

Kolkata, Sep 4 (IANS) The decision of Mitali Roy, a former Trinamool Congress MLA from the Dhupguri Assembly constituency in West Bengal, to join the BJP just 48 hours ahead of a crucial bypoll, has created a rumbling of discontent in state unit of the saffron party.

The contention of the BJP leaders opposing Roy’s inclusion is that the state leadership of BJP has not learnt any lesson from the results of 2021 Assembly elections, when several Trinamool Congress leaders joined the saffron camp before the polls only to return to the ruling party after the party was unable to form the government.

The most candid on this point is the BJP district secretary in Cooch Behar  Ajay Saha, who has expressed his grievances of Roy’s inclusion openly on a social media post.

“BJP does not seem to have taken any lesson from the 2021 state assembly elections. Before the election, many leaders and legislators from Trinamool Congress joined the BJP. Many of them contested for BJP in the 2021 polls. But still we were not able to form the government in the state. They went to Trinamool Congress again after the results.

"Roy joined BJP since he was being ignored in Trinamool Congress. She herself got defeated in 2021 to the BJP candidate. How can BJP gain from her inclusion?” he questioned.

Saha also said that because of this tendency for inclusion of turncoats in the party are prompting many old-timers to either quit the party or become inactive.

“They are disheartened by the inclusion of the corrupt leaders from Trinamool Congress. The state leadership is adopting a shortcut method to gain importance to the central leadership and this is ruining the party in the state,” he said.

Roy, the former party MLA from Dhupguri from 2016 to 2021, also contested on behalf of the ruling party in the 2021 West Assembly elections from the same constituency.

However in 2021 she was defeated by the BJP's Bishnu Pada Roy, who died recently, necessitating the bypoll for the constituency.

Party insiders said that although Mitali Roy was expecting a re-nomination in the by-polls, she was unhappy as the ruling party instead of re-nominating her fielded Nirmal Chandra Roy, a professor at the Dhupguri Girls College, for the seat.