Heavyweight Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Suvendu Adhikari, who has raised a storm in West Bengal politics, has continued his stance under the ‘Dadar Anugami (Brother’s followers)’ after a “failed” meeting with Saugata Roy.
Adhikari has been a hotshot political property in West Bengal ever since he started a rebellion against his own party. He had begun expressing his disenchantment with TMC with indirect jibes at “apolitical” meetings and rallies.
However, a couple of meetings between him and veteran TMC leader Saugata Roy was deemed as the ice-breaker. One such meet on Monday, which was expected to finalise whether or not Adhikari would stay, failed to find a solution, reporter Bengali news portal The Wall. What conspired between the two TMC strongmen hasn’t been reported yet.
As a result of Adhikari is believed to have continued with his independent works under the banner of ‘Dadar Anugami’. He took part at an annual event in East Midnapore’s Khejuri and walked in a rally there on Tuesday.
The event, which is generally organised by the TMC in memory of its workers who were attacked by CPIM on November 25, 2010, was attended by two ruling party MLAs, Ranjit Mondal and Banasree Maity. However, the rally did not see any TMC flag or banner.
Tuesday’s event in Khejuri holds significance as it has shown that the distance between Mamata Banerjee’s party and the Minister in Charge of Transport, Irrigation and Water resource in Govt. of West Bengal, has not been bridged substantially as many were speculating.
“I’m still a member of one party. I’m still a minister in the cabinet of West Bengal government. Mamata Banerjee has not asked to me to resign, neither have I deicded to leave. I’m not a man to let go my ideology for the sake of politics,” Adhikari had said at a public meeting in Ramnagar in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district, putting hope in TMC that a solution was near.
However, after Monday’s meeting and Tuesday’s rally, the former TMC youth secretary has let his stance known and it remains to be seen how the Mamata Banerjee-led entity tackles the situation.
One of the architects of TMC’s Nandigram revolution, the Nandigram MLA is still a major force of the party’s ground-level organisation in the state. Suvendu’s departure from TMC could be fateful for West Bengal’s governning party in next year’s election.
BJP has also jumped into the high-voltage drama and openly asked Adhikari to join the hindutva brigade on many occasions. Party’s state president in West Bengal, Dilip Ghosh, had welcomed Adhikari and said that the door was always open for him to join BJP.
“They (TMC) will send him to BJP anyway. We have kept our doors wide open to welcome everyone. If TMC sends anyone, we’ll take him. If someone’s willing to do politics, there’ll be opportunity. However, there has been no discussion as of now,” the Medinipur MP had said.