BJP leader Mukul Roy today said democracy was facing a "grave danger" in West Bengal under the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government as there was a "police raj" going on in the state.
The newly-inducted BJP leader also said that the TMC did not have the mindset to grow into a national party.
"It (TMC) boasts that it is the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC), but can you cite one example of a state, apart from Bengal, where the TMC has a proper presence? It is because of its policies that the TMC has lost ground in Tripura, Manipur and other states," he said.
Roy, once the second-in-command in the TMC and a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, joined the saffron party last week in Delhi.
"A police raj is going on in the state. Mobiles and landlines of Opposition leaders and those who do not agree with the TMC government are being tapped. The political space for the Opposition parties has shrunk in the last six years," he said in an interview to a Bengali television channel.
"During the Left regime, they did not allow free-and-fair polls, but never did they try to curb the rights of the Opposition parties. Under the current regime, the Opposition parties are not even allowed to function in a free-and-fair manner," Roy alleged.
He also criticised the TMC leadership for changing its stand on the Congress and the BJP on several occasions.
The former Rajya Sabha MP said he was feeling "suffocated" in the TMC due to various reasons and that is why he had decided to leave the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
"It was the alliance with the BJP which had helped the TMC to taste success in its initial years, be it the 1998 or the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. Without the backing of the BJP, the TMC would have never gained its ground as a political force in Bengal," he claimed.
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