New Delhi: In a blow to Trinamool Congress, Mukul Roy, the once powerful close aide of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, is set to join the BJP.
Roy, who will resign later today from Rajya Sabha as TMC MP, has already met finance minister Arun Jaitley and BJP’s Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya.
But what is raising eyeballs is the meeting that didn’t take place. Sources confirm that a senior Congress leader wanted to fix an appointment between Roy and party vice president Rahul Gandhi, but the latter wasn’t too keen.
Roy was once very close to Mamata, but in the backdrop of the Narada and Saradha scams the fallout is complete. While Roy hasn’t yet spoken against Mamata, one can expect him to do so once he officially joins BJP.
According to sources, the meeting between Roy and Rahul Gandhi didn’t take place as Congress is inching closer to TMC. After the debacle of the Left-Congress alliance in recent Bengal Assembly polls, Congress has realized that Mamata can be a more powerful ally. Left, at least in Bengal, is down and out. Also, for the Congress cadres in Kerala, where Left is the principal opponent, the alliance with Left in Bengal was problematic.
Congress now has begun to cosy up to Didi. Sonia Gandhi shares an excellent equation with Mamata and despite the Left-Cong alliance, they kept in touch. Recently, Mamata and Rahul held a meeting on demonetization and Mamata was seen advising Rahul Gandhi. Sources say Rahul wasn’t keen to meet Roy because he didn’t want to upset Mamata Banerjee. The fact that BJP wants to use Roy, who is privy to many secrets of Didi and TMC, is one more reason why Congress wants to stay away from him. As far as TMC and Congress are concerned, Roy is persona non grata.
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