Bengal Election 2021 | Mukul Roy: The BJP's gem that still shone

Even as most turncoats who switched to BJP tasted defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections 2021, BJP's vice-president Mukul Roy, who had switched side from Bengal's ruling party in 2017 emerged victorious from Krishnanagar Uttar, defeating actress-turned-TMC nominee Koushani Mukherjee by a margin of 35,000 votes.

Roy contested in elections after nearly two decades but his dominance in West Bengal politics can not only be ascertained from his victory in the recent polls but also from the fact that even after all these years, the politician, hailed as the rising star of the BJP in the state, was being considered as the party's key chief ministerial face.

Roy returned to the electoral fray as a BJP candidate from the Krishnanagar Uttar Assembly constituency in Nadia district, which went to polls in the sixth phase of the elections on April 22, 2021.

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The 66-year-old, once considered number two in the Trinamool Congress and a part of Mamata Banerjee's close circle, defected to the BJP in 2017. When in 2019, the Lok Sabha poll results indicated a paradigm shift in state politics with the saffron party emerging as the principal challenger to the TMC, Roy took the charge of bringing the "disgruntled" leaders and elected representatives of the TMC to the party.

"They will join the party at an appropriate time. Just wait for a few months, you will see TMC disintegrating like a pack of cards," Roy had said in June 2020.

Switching of sides by many party legislators and MPs had cost the TMC dearly in the 2019 Parliamentary elections and the situation might be similar in the 2021 state Assembly elections with the BJP placing its bets on 22 defectors — most of them TMC deserters, including former state ministers Suvendu Adhikari and Rajib Banerjee.

A few defectors got the better of their TMC rivals even in the West Bengal Assembly elections 2021, including Suvendu Adhikari who emerged as a proverbial giant slayer, by defeating Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee albeit by a narrow margin.

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Political observers are of the opinion that Roy's humble beginning was somewhat similar to Banerjee's, which makes them both skilled street fighters. But a close comparison shows they are two different people who came together because of the circumstances post 1977 defeat of the Congress.

The political heavyweight's journey began as a Youth Congress leader. However, he, later on, went on to become one of the founders of the TMC in 1988, when Mamata Banerjee decided to split from the Congress.

Relations between Mamata and Roy went sour in 2015 after it was alleged that the latter was involved in the Saradha scam as well as in the Narada sting operation. Following this, he was suspended from the TMC for six years. It was alleged that he met senior BJP leaders like Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and conspired against the interest of the TMC.

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After resigning from the Rajya Sabha membership in October 2017, Roy formally joined the BJP in November 2017. The turncoat was also currently under fire because of an audiotape released by TMC in which he purportedly told another leader Shishir Bajoria about how to influence the Election Commission.

"See, we have to include this point while meeting the EC. We have to say that this rule that polling agents can only be deputed in their localities should be changed. The only criteria should be that the person is a citizen of the state. The BJP won't be able to have its agents in a large number of booths otherwise," Roy purportedly told Bajoria.