'No one will remain in BJP,' says Mukul Roy after returning to TMC fold

'I have joined TMC today. In the present circumstances, no one will remain in Bharatiya Janata Party,' says Roy

In a blow to the prestige of the saffron brigade, Bharatiya Janata Partys national Vice President Mukul Roy along with son Subhranshu, re-joined the Trinamool Congress on Friday, with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other leaders of the state's ruling party welcoming him back to the fold.

Roy, who was closeted with Banerjee in Trinamool Bhavan before his formal re-induction in the party he helped set up, said he was "happy to see all known faces again".

"I have joined TMC today. In the present circumstances, no one will remain in Bharatiya Janata Party," said Roy.

Addressing a press meet after the re-joining ceremony, Banerjee said Roy was threatened and tortured in the BJP, and that, in turn, affected his health.

"Mukul's return proves that the BJP does not let anyone live in peace and put's undue pressure on everyone," the chief minister said. Roy was seated on Banerjees left hand, with Abhishek seated after him, while Partha Chatterjee, another top TMC leader sat on her right, indicative according to TMC sources, of the partys future pecking order.

Speculation had been rife for some time on a possible home coming by Mukul Roy who had crossed over to BJP in 2017 after being charged in the Narada tape sting, ever since Banerjees nephew Abhishek visited his wife at a city hospital earlier this month.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promptly after Abhisheks visit, rung up to enquire about Roys wifes health, seen by political observers as an attempt to retain him within the BJP-fold.

Interestingly, at Fridays re-joining ceremony, both Banerjee and Roy claimed that they never had any differences.

The chief minister said we will consider the case of those who had left TMC with Mukul for BJP and want to come back. A signal that this may be the start of more defections from BJPs Bengal unit.

However, Banerjee clarified that TMC politicians and workers who left to join the BJP just ahead of the April-May assembly elections will not be taken back.

Roy, once the second-in-command of the TMC, was removed from the post of the party's national general secretary in February, 2015, sometime after the Narada sting was carried out by investigative journalists where many politicians were allegedly caught accepting wads of cash from a fictitious company. He joined the BJP in November, 2017.

The move to bring him back possibly started when Banerjee at an election rally in late March had termed his conduct as not so bad.

This was in contrast to the chief ministers other election speeches, where she had branded turncoat TMC members such as Suvendu Adhikari as 'Mir Jafars, after the infamous Bengal general who betrayed Bengal's Nawab Siraj ud Dowlah in the battle of Plassey against Lord Robert Clives army.

TMC will selectively take back people who crossed over. The aim will be to organisationally weaken BJP but at the same time it will not want too many turncoats back as this would be seen as rewarding dissidence, said Rajat Roy, well-known political analyst and member of the Calcutta Research Group. Mukul Roy is a special case as he is known to be an organisational brain.

Several former TMC MLAs including Dipendu Biswas and Sonali Guha have in recent past sent letters regretting their decision to join the BJP and sought to return back to the partys fold. Guha, who at one time was considered close to Banerjee, made an impassioned plea on camera seeking the chief ministers forgiveness.

Guha, a four-time legislator from Satgachia in South 24 Parganas, had also written in a letter the way fish cannot stay out of water, I will not be able to live without you, Didi.

Even before the formal entry of Mukul Roy, BJPs national Vice President into Trinamool Congress, BJP leaders reacted angrily to the desertion.

BJP leader Dilip Ghosh reacting to news of Mukul Roys re-entry into Trinamool Congress, said he was not sure the party would lose anything from the move given that he was unsure whether we gained anything from Roys entry three- and-half years back.