BJP placating leaders, scrutinising backgrounds of TMC members keen to join BJP.
New Delhi: Leaders of the RSS and BJP, who have the responsibility of West Bengal, are facing new challenges these days: placating their own state party leaders who are against Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders joining the BJP and, secondly, carefully scrutinising the backgrounds of those TMC leaders who are approaching them seeking a place in the BJP.
Senior functionaries who are active in West Bengal told this newspaper that at least 110 TMC MLAs were in touch with them with the intention to join the BJP. The party, according to these leaders, is in the process of finalising the next course of action on who all should be taken into the party. Following the general election results, in which the BJP secured 18 out of the 42 seats from Bengal, six TMC MLAs have already switched sides and joined the BJP.
This churning is happening more at the local district level. Ever since the 23 May results, the TMC has also lost control of seven civic bodies, the latest being the Bongaon municipality of North 24 Parganas district where 12 of its councillors joined the BJP on Tuesday. The same thing happened in Bhatapara, Halishahar, Naihati, Garulia, Kanchrapara and Darjeeling. All the six, except Darjeeling, come under North 24 Parganas. The BJP had won two of the five Lok Sabha seats in North 24 Parganas district, which is in the southern part of Bengal.
The BJP is expecting that by December this year, more than half of all such functionaries across the state would join the party. “These political entities (councillors) are close to the ground, among all the position holders, and they can sense that the TMC is already sinking; hence, they are moving to BJP in large numbers,” a top leader said.
The senior leaders are also spending a lot of time placating local BJP leaders who have reached out to them with complaints that the BJP should not take TMC leaders who have a record of physically hurting the BJP cadre for the last two years ever since Mukul Roy joined the BJP.
“110 TMC MLAs, as of today, have sent us messages that they want to join the BJP. We are scrutinising their background. We are in no hurry (to decide on their induction) as we know that people of West Bengal are fed up with the Mamata Banerjee government and they will defeat her. As election approaches, this 110 will increase and there is a very strong chance that the Mamata Banerjee government will lose majority (in the Assembly) by early next year. We also realise that we cannot fight a battle without a proper gear and hence we need TMC MLAs who know how to win elections and what to do when faced with a violent opposition like Banerjee. We will induct leaders only after our local leadership says yes and, from now on, these inductions will happen in Kolkata rather than Delhi,” a top party functionary said.
The party recently had to depute state and district level officers to quell the anger among some local BJP leaders who were upoet over the induction of some TMC leaders. This anger came out in the open when Manirul Islam, a TMC strongman, joined the BJP. Because of this he had to offer to resign, though he is still part of the BJP.
“Their anger is understandable. We are now being more careful. A top TMC leader from North Bengal who was very much desperate to join the BJP was told no as he had been very vindictive against our party leaders in the last 4-5 years,” the BJP leader quoted earlier said. The BJP, which performed exceptionally well in the North Bengal region by securing seven out of the eight Lok Sabha seats from there, has asked its MPs from the region to stay in touch with all the disgruntled leaders of the TMC who are willing to join the BJP.
The state party leadership led by party in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya, RSS strategist and co-incharge of West Bengal, Arvind Menon and senior leader Mukul Roy are following the principle of “practical politics” with regard to West Bengal and each is focusing on a separate aspect.
Vijayvargiya, who stays in the front, is playing the role of the communicator between the state leaders and the central leadership. The ground-based campaigning and the overall election strategy is being done by Arvind Menon, while Mukul Roy has been entrusted with the job of handling the TMC leaders who want to join the BJP.
“The approach is to take in people from the TMC, who can strengthen the BJP and do not have a very ‘disturbing’ past. It is a practical approach, which is needed in West Bengal, where violence and political killings have been turned into a norm by the Left and the TMC,” another top party leader said.
With local district level TMC leaders abandoning the party, it has led to a lot of worry in the Trinamool Congress as a result of which the party has now asked its district leaders to pacify the party leaders who want to join the BJP and has also directed them not to “trouble” the common man. Election to the 294-member state Assembly is scheduled to be held in 2021. The TMC had won on 211 seats in 2016.