The Bengal BJP seems to be a divided house on the question of choosing Leader of Opposition. While a section of the party wants veteran leader and former Railway Minister Mukul Roy — often considered a “Chanakya” in State politics — to lead the party in the House others want to nominate Nandigram MLA Suvendu Adhikari a “bold and dynamic organiser” on the post.
While the entire team of the BJP Legislators is new and inexperienced both Roy and Adhikari are veterans in parliamentary politics, a State BJP leader who unsuccessfully contested the elections from northern fringes of Kolkata said wondering whether Roy with his health problems would want to accept the responsibility.
“Mukul da is already the vice-president of all-India party … He could be an effective Opposition Leader but may be doubtful because of his health,” the leader said.
Another senior leader and a party MP said “strongest argument in Adhikari’s favour is that he has defeated none other than Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee” to win the Nandigram seat by a (wafer-thin) margin of 1,953 votes. “Besides, he is young, a good organiser and energetic with vast ministerial experience.”
Both Roy and Adhikari had been two closest aides of Mamata Banerjee and left the Trinamool Congress to join the BJP. While Roy joined the BJP in 2017, Adhikari, a State Minister with multiple port-folios left his party a few months before the elections.
The backers of Adhikari also want to provide some kind of “immunity” against any “possible victimisation” by the Chief Minister, inside sources say quoting information that “files are being readied” to pin him down.
The Chief Minister had already said in election rallies that after returning to power her Government would probe irregularities in some of the institutions that were chaired by Adhikari.
The old guards in the BJP do not want Roy or Adhikari. They want an RSS man to be chosen for the post. This to send across a message that the BJP does not rely on turncoat politics only.
A top functionary of the RSS said, “We had built a ground for the BJP that resulted in our massive win in the 2019 elections … but those advances were lost as we went to break the TMC (by engineering defections) rather than strengthening our own organsational network … taking turncoats clearly backfired… now the party should go back to basics and appoint a pure RSS man as the Opposition Leader.”
He is also skeptic of the “migratory birds” saying, “you do not know when they will fly back … mind you none of them have clean track records …”
Such rumors had already been doing the rounds about some of the BJP leaders like Mukul Roy after May 2 when the election results were declared.
Roy however rejected such rumors on Saturday saying “My fight would continue as a soldier of BJP to restore democracy in our State. I would request everyone to put the concoctions and conjectures to rest. I am resolute in my political path.”
In order to buttress its argument the faction backed by the RSS shows how State BJP president Dilip Ghosh managed the party affairs well though he had no experience in parliamentary politics. “Even Dilip da was a newcomer to this set up but he made a fantastic leader and won two elections… we have inexperienced MLAs but only an RSS man should be made the Opposition Leader,” the senior Sangh functionary said, adding “despite the defeat we want a person who is soaked in our ideology.”
In fact the RSS mindset has found some support in the views expressed by senior party leader and former Tripura Governor Tathagato Roy who soon after the election results attacked leaders like Kailash Vijaybargiya, Arvind Menon, Dilip Ghosh et al slamming them for fielding “TMC’s garbage” as BJP’s nominees.
“Kailash-Dilip-Shiv-Arvind (KDSA) foursome has dragged names of our respected Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and Home Minister (Amit Shah) through mud and have sullied the name of the biggest political party in the world. Sitting atop Agarwal Bhavan of Hastings (Bengal BJP’s election headquarter) and 7-star hotels, they have distributed tickets to incoming garbage from Trinamool Congress,” he said, adding the selection of candidates were not only wrong but not in sync with Bengali culture. When contacted party leader Raju Banerjee said it was his personal decision.
Another group in the party wants Alipurduar MLA Manoj Tigga as the Opposition Leader. Tigga was an MLA in the previous Assembly too. A party leader said “Manoj da comes from North Bengal where the BJP has a strong base … we should respect that sentiment of the people.”
He also says that appointing Tigga on the post would send a message to the tribal population of the State across five districts of West Midnapore, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura and Birbhum.
“Besides this would be for the first time that a tribal would be made the Opposition Leader … I think BJP will gain from this,” the leader said.
The State BJP president himself however sought to remain non-committal saying “there is no decision on this issue … we will sit and take a decision after speaking to the MLAs and particularly the national leadership … the issue needs an extensive discussion.”