Political games

 The recent Iftar party convened by Mr Mukul Roy drew massive crowds and somewhat unnerved the Trinamool Congress. The divide between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Mr Roy surfaced as soon as the latter came out smiling from the CBI office after undergoing a long interrogation in connection with the investigations in the Saradha scam. Particularly, Mr Roy’s smile when he came out of the CBI office must have puzzled Ms Banerjee.

Suspicions must have begun to creep in her mind that her former right-hand man must have implicated her in the scam and offered himself as an approver. Since then, much water has flowed down the bridge. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is cosying up to Ms Banerjee to win her party’s support in the Rajya Sabha. She had shared the stage with him in Dhaka, and had given him her consent to the land boundary agreement between India and Bangladesh. 

The gathering at Mr Roy’s event mainly comprised Muslims. During election time, the Muslim voters will not be under any obligation to back Mr Roy or his party — which he has not yet floated. The exercise was to demonstrate his standing among the Muslim community to unnerve Ms Banerjee.