The jury is out on how much impact Roy will have on Bengal politics after joining BJP.
'Bhag Mukul Bhag'- Senior BJP leader's Siddhart Nath Singh's clarion call in 2015 has finally come true, albeit in a twisted manner. Mukul Roy, once Mamata Banerjee's trusted man Friday has indeed run away from TMC but only to join BJP.
A lot of BJP supporters and sympathisers would like to hope that Mukul Roy does for BJP what Himanta Biswas Sharma did for them in Assam. One suspects BJP leadership also hopes that the party will gain significantly from the presence of the veteran leader. But it's unlikely to be that easy.
The most important point which needs to be kept in mind is Mukul is not a popular leader. Forget Mamata Banerjee, he is not even an Adhir Chowdhury or late Congress leader Barkat Gani Khan Choudhary.
They had the charisma and sway to pull a crowd of over one lakh people, had considerable influence over certain districts. Mukul on the other hand is not a crowd-puller. He is an out-and-out an organisational person. He is good in doing the brick-and-mortar jobs, which is important but certainly not enough to overthrow the popular Mamata government in the state.
So, what exactly is BJP's expectation from Mukul Roy? Panchayat elections in the state are in less than a year's time. It's more or less an effective indicator of what will happen in 2019.
The BJP in the past have not even managed to contest in all seats, forget winning. Hence, the task for Mukul will be to build the ground-level organisation, so that the party can at least compete against a rampaging TMC. In 2013, TMC virtually got a walkover in the Panchayat and the elaborate design was mapped by Mukul Roy. Now, it is Mukul's job to stop that while being in the other side of the political divide. Perhaps Mukul can take inspiration from his work in the past. In 2006, when TMC slumped to an embarrassing 30 seats out of 294 in Assembly, Mamata Banerjee aided with Mukul Roy started re-building the organisation from scratch. With their political accumen, they were wise enough to properly leverage Left's missteps in Nandigram and Singur, thus denting the once impenetrable Left fortress. Mukul has to do it again, with Mamata Banerjee as adversary.
But the baggage Mukul brings with him is immense. He is tainted in both Saradha scam and Narada sting. In fact, many believe, Mukul Roy is at the heart of TMC's involvement with the chit fund company Saradha. So, his crossing the aisle will significantly blunt the sting of BJP's attacks on TMC.
At this moment, it is anyone's guess how CBI and ED probe in Narada and Saradha will proceed. But it will be considerable face loss for BJP if Mukul is implicated in either of them. The best hope for them is Mukul escaping but managing to implicate some top TMC leaders. But there are too many equations and variables involved to make it a water-tight situation.
And that's why there was great trepidation among BJP leaders to induct Mukul. He was finally included because electorally BJP doesn't have an alternative play in Bengal. Yes, their votes are increasing but it is almost 20% less than TMC on average. There is no prize for coming second in politics and unless BJP crosses the 25% vote-share, it is unlikely to pick up significant number of seats in Bengal. Chances are that Congress and Left with some amount of concentrated power will end up with greater number of seats than BJP.
Hence the saffron party is in a precarious position despite all the positive buzz on social media. It neither has the ground game nor a charismatic leader to leverage that buzz or goodwill of PM Modi.
At th end of the day, BJP suffers a serious talent crisis in Bengal. It hasn't had any genuine tall leader post Tapan Sikdar and Satyabrata Mookherjee. Rahul Sinha showed glimpses of talent but has failed to deliver so far. A desperate BJP had to get Dilip Ghosh, a RSS veteran to helm the affairs of the party in the state. But Dilip Ghosh, for all his fiery talk hasn't proved to be a great organiser. Thus, the hope that a tainted Mukul Roy can help the lotus bloom in Didi land. Is it an amazingly short-sighted decision or a potential masterstroke? Only time will tell.
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 "Amit Shah with Mukul Roy")
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