TMC rebel Adhikari may join BJP during Shah’s Bengal visit

Kolkata: Former cabinet minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Suvendu Adhikari is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during Union home minister

Kolkata: Former cabinet minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Suvendu Adhikari is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during Union home minister Amit Shah’s visit to the poll-bound state later this week.

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Adhikari’s aides and BJP leaders said the decks were being cleared for his formal admission into the party. There has been strong speculation that he would switch over to the BJP since he challenged the TMC leadership last month and peace talks failed to bridge the differences.

Shah will be in Bengal on December 19 and 20. He will address rallies in at least three districts, including East Midnapore where Adhikari, his father and two brothers represent two Lok Sabha constituencies and hold an assembly seat. They also run the civic body at Contai, their hometown. Adhikari was elected to the assembly from the Nandigram seat.

“It has been decided so far that neither Shah nor party president J P Nadda will hand over the party flag to Adhikari in public to induct him into the BJP. This formality will be done by either Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh or some senior national leader,” a senior state BJP leader told HT on Tuesday.

BJP’s national vice-president Mukul Roy, who left the TMC in 2018 and was instrumental in making many ruling party leaders switch camps, said: “Suvendu will join the BJP. It is only a matter of time.”

The party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya called up Adhikari to wish him on his birthday. “It was a courtesy call. I wish him a long life,” Vijayvargiya told the media.

Several old leaders of the state BJP, however, sounded skeptical and said they would speak on Adhikari only after he joins the party.

“Suvendu had already made a deal with the BJP before we started the talks. Probably he has been promised the chief minister’s chair. He is extremely ambitious. But let him win the election first. We are ready,” TMC Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy, who engaged in reconciliatory talks with Adhikari, told HT on Tuesday night.

The 50-year-old rebel leader, who resigned from the cabinet last month and relinquished two administrative posts, is planning to visit Delhi on Thursday to talk to the BJP national leadership. His aides said he may resign from the assembly before joining the BJP. Adhikari avoided the media. TMC leaders said he did not contact the assembly speaker till 8 pm on Tuesday.

Senior TMC leaders said in private that Adhikari was specifically unhappy with Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee and election strategist Prashant Kishor who was roped in by the chief minister after the BJP won 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.

Adhikari made significant remarks at a non-political programme on Tuesday morning. “Those who insulted me will face the same fate as Anil Basu, Benoy Konar and Laxman Seth when people cast their votes in a few months,” said Adhikari. The three CPI(M) leaders he mentioned faced electoral defeat and disciplinary action as well.

“We are Indians first and Bengalis later…. We need governance that will be for the people, of the people and by the people. It should not be for the party, of the party and by the party,” said Adhikari at a programme held in Haldia to pay homage to noted freedom fighter Satish Samanta.

Though Adhikari did not take names it was apparent that his target was the TMC as Mamata Banerjee and other leaders have recently started calling the BJP’s national leaders “outsiders” and accusing the latter of being ignorant about Bengal’s culture and heritage.

“One must remember that the land agitation at Nandigram was a people’s movement and not that of an individual or any party…. I do not care about plum posts. Take a look. So many people have come here today although I have left the cabinet, ” Adhikari added.

This statement was significant because Adhikari took the lead in steering the agitation against the acquisition of farmland which started after 14 villagers were killed in police firing at Nandigram on March 14, 2007. The land movement, which was held under the banner of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), a platform against land acquisition that even the Maoists supported covertly, helped Banerjee overthrow the Left Front government.

The chief minister, who addressed rallies at Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar in north Bengal on Tuesday, sent a signal to dissident leaders without naming Adhikari.

“There is no place (in TMC) for those who seek opportunity in other camps after being in the government for a decade,” she said. Incidentally, Mihir Goswami, the TMC legislator from the Cooch Behar South constituency, joined the BJP in Delhi on November 27, the day Adhikari stepped down from the cabinet in which he held three departments, including transport.

“Adhikari will announce himself when he will join the BJP. The TMC and Prashant Kishor will soon witness many more joining the saffron camp because of the policies being followed by the ruling party,” said Kanishka Panda, an Adhikari aide who was expelled from the TMC two days ago. He was the TMC’s general secretary in East Midnapore.