In a major embarrassment to the BJP, a former Trinamool Congress MLA in West Bengal denied any association with the party within hours of her being named as its candidate for an Assembly byelection in the State.
Manju Basu was to be the BJP’s candidate in the Noapara Assembly constituency in North 24 Paraganas district, where polling is scheduled for January 29.
“I have no idea how the BJP announced my name. I have not received any communication from the BJP State leadership about this and came to know about it from the media,” Ms. Basu told The Hindu . She, however, admitted that she had held several meetings with BJP leaders Kailash Vijayvargiya, national general secretary, and Mukul Roy.
Following the gaffe, the BJP declared that Sandeep Banerjee, the party’s president in the district, would be its candidate in Noapara. The Assembly seat fell vacant following the death of Congress MLA Madhusudhan Ghosh last year.
Mukul Roy in a spot
The development has put Mr. Roy in a spot as the State BJP leadership made it clear that it was he who approached the former Trinamool MLA to contest. “Ms. Basu is an old acquaintance of Mr. Roy. He persuaded her to join the BJP and contest the bypolls. I do not know anything about her,” BJP State president Dilip Ghosh said. He alleged that it was “Trinamool’s intimidation” that forced Ms. Basu to suddenly “back track”.
Accepting responsibility, Mr. Roy said “the incident was perhaps the outcome of his adventurism”. A senior BJP leader admitted that there had been a “serious miscommunication” between the Central and the State leaderships.
Trinamool leadership denied the allegation of intimidation. “Mukul Roy tried to break the Trinamool, but ended up losing his credibility,” said Food and Supplies Minister Jyotipryo Mullick.
