It won’t be easy to put a stop to the issue surrounding Suvendu Adhikari’s meeting on November 25 with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Vidhan Sabha chamber. The TMC supremo’s most ferocious rival and leader of the opposition in the state assembly, who was once close to her before he joined the BJP, has been busy over the weekend trying to explain how and why he met his former menoto. And in contrast to November 26, when opposition party leaders from the CPI(M) and the Congress accused Suvendu and Banerjee of making covert deals, this time around, prominent BJP leaders are posing the same queries.
Suvendu likely understood what he was getting into because he was a turncoat. This is why he brought along the chief whip of the BJP legislative party, Manoj Tigga, and BJP MLAs Ashok Lahiri and Agnimitra Paul on November 25 when he visited Banerjee’s chamber for the first time since he assumed the position of Leader of the Opposition in 2021. The options are intriguing given the factionalism inside the state BJP organization. While Tigga, who has spent his entire life in the RSS, is known to be close to Suvendu, Paul is known to be a member of the old BJP camp of lifelong saffronites. Lahiri is allied with neither side, despite not being a fervent member of the saffron cadre.
BJP leaders in Suvendu’s camp countered that this incident won’t have an impact on his political future. Suvendu deftly attended the meeting with Manoj Tigga, Agnimitra Paul, and Ashok Lahiri, according to a trusted aide. Tigga is a BJP veteran, Paul is a young BJP leader, and it’s important to remember that Suvendu skipped the swearing-in ceremony of C V Ananda Bose, the state’s newly appointed governor, two days prior to their meeting on November 25 because, according to Suvendu, he was placed in a seat between two TMC members who had defected from the BJP after winning Vidhan Sabha seats on BJP ballots in 2021 at the Chief Minister
Suvendu, interestingly, confirmed Banerjee’s claim that she had called him for a polite “cup of tea,” but they didn’t actually drink any tea because they both had to return to the Assembly session right away.
Suvendu was once again his combative self on November 26. At a public gathering in Thakurnagar, in the 24 Parganas (North) district, he declared: “Sensing the mood in the BJP camp, especially among those who have advanced through the RSS ranks and are incensed by the importance given to recent joinees.” But on November 27, he was back, expanding on the incident from November 25 while speaking to a crowd in Siliguri, showing that the criticism hadn’t shaken him.
However, some of the more seasoned BJP members remain unconvinced despite all these lengthy and repeated explanations. In spite of the fact that lifelong RSS workers like former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and his supporters are now encircled within the organization, they are back to complain about Suvendu being promoted to Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and becoming the de facto face of the state BJP within months of joining the party.
While making comments about the incident, Ghosh was being his customary mischievous self.
The CPI(M) called the gathering a “setting” between the BJP and the TMC as early as November 26.
News Mania Desk
