With the political plot in Bengal thickening and curdling in an unpredictable manner, sabre-rattling between newly joined BJP leader Mukul Roy and his former political alma mater Trinamool Congress threatened to metamorphose into judicial battles with both sides swearing by the courts to teach the Opposition a lesson of truth and propriety.
While Roy, who has been under incessant attack from his earlier party Trinamool Congress for turning into a “turncoat”, has decided to sue the Mamata Banerjee Government for allegedly tapping his telephone calls, the Chief Minister’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee a Trinamool MP shot off a legal notice to the former Railway Minister — demanding public apology for allegedly maligning his name on the Bishwa Bangla logo controversy — or face legal consequence.
Roy said on Friday that he would move Delhi High Court against the State Government on Friday. The Central Government and respective telecom companies will also be made respondents to the suit it was said alleging the Trinamool Congress Government had kept his telephone calls under surveillance.
His close aides said apprehensive about Roy’s ability to break Opposition ranks Mamata Banerjee administration had put the former Railway Minister and his confidants in the TMC under close watch “so that they can be prevented from crossing over to the saffron side before the panchayat elections.”
This, particularly after BJP State president Dilip Ghosh said that “Mukul da’s expertise in certain respects would be utilised to dent Trinamool Congress support base.”
The former Trinamool Congress leader’s decision came almost in tandem with a defamation notice sent to him by Banerjee junior after Roy alleged from a public rally that Bengal Government had turned into a personal fief of the Banerjee’s and was being run like a public limited company.
He alleged that the Bishwa Bangla logo (conceived and designed by the Chief Minister herself) so enthusiastically used for marketing Bengal as a destination for all purposes including business and world sports — like the junior FIFA World Cup that was hosted in Kolkata recently — was actually being used by a company that was owned by the junior Banerjee. What he would not immediately say was the natural consequences of such blatant misuse — economic gains.
Banerjee in his notice demanded immediate apology — within 48 hours — from Roy, not doing which would then invite both civil and legal proceedings. The former Railway Minister refused to backtrack and said he would reply to questions having been raised in the court of law. “let them first file a case and then I will reply it there,” he said.
Roy not only tended to tackle the “Trinamool bouncer” on the front foot but he also played a confident hook shot by catching the two senior IAS officers of the Bengal Government in the cross fire for illegally trying to defend the Trinamool MP by providing materials to the media that were only half true.
He wrote letters to State Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharya and State Additional Chief Secretary Rajiv Sinha for lying in public and aiding political activity. A copy of the letter was also marked to Jitendra Singh the Minister of State, Department of Personnel and Training seeking an enquiry into the developments and their conducts under All India Services Conduct Rules.
The officials had told a press briefing soon after Roy’s public disclosure on the logo issue from a BJP rally that the logo designed by the Chief Minister belonged actually to the State Government. Roy is known to be in possession of documents that buttress his arguments.