How Tathagata Roy’s Return to Active Politics Could Change Fabric of BJP’s Final Push For Power In Bengal

The hiatus is over. It’s time to shed constitutional propriety and re-enter active politics on one of the country's most politically volatile soils – West Bengal, right ahead of 2021 assembly polls.

Tathagata Roy, former Governor of three North-eastern states is all set to begin his next innings in politics. As he reached Kolkata on Sunday afternoon, Roy is counting his experience as the president of BJP’s Bengal unit from 2002 - 2006 and a member of the party’s National Executive from 2002 - 2015.

Amid rife political speculations on who would become Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chief ministerial candidate in the state for the upcoming polls, Roy’s timing of arrival adds certain significance. It also raises questions if the party is running out of time for zeroing in on a face who should, at least, be at par in political stature, charisma and acceptance to take on incumbent chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Political fortunes have changed quite dramatically for BJP in Bengal between then and now. In Roy’s times, the party barely enjoyed the support of 5 per cent of the state’s electorate. And in 2019 general election, BJP bagged 18 of the 42 parliamentary seats under the leadership of Dilip Ghosh, party’s state president. Complications within the party now are far too many compared to what it was at the turn of the century when Roy was at the helm of affairs.

Those complications have lent credence to the buzz on whether Roy’s arrival could add to the already clear divisions within the party’s state unit with Ghosh and Mukul Roy at opposite ends of the organization. And names like Rahul Sinha, Babul Supriyo, Locket Chatterjee, Arjun Singh and Swapan Dasgupta interspersed somewhere in between but at varied corners.

Roy, fiercely active on social media platforms like Twitter has often run into controversy with his radical right-wing comments and for taking jibes at Dilip Ghosh for making “illogical” public remarks. "In West Bengal, the North Indian culture of 'Gai Hamari Mata Hain' (cow is our mother) won't work. Statements such as cow's milk has gold or cow urine can cure Covid-19 won't help the BJP in West Bengal," Roy had said earlier in August.

It is in this context that many believe Roy could form the third point of the fracturing triangle within the party once he takes up the job of organisation leader. But Roy disagrees: “Once I join the party, I am ready to play any role that the party assigns to me. I became Governor to fulfil my party’s wishes. I will now do whatever they want me to do… it could be in Bengal, it could also be anywhere outside the state,” Roy told News18, adding: “I would primarily want to focus in Bengal, though.”

Compared to Ghosh or other so-called contenders for the party’s top job, Roy’s electoral achievements are hardly remarkable. His unsuccessful attempts for a Lok Sabha berth, first from North Kolkata and then from South Kolkata in 2009 and 2014 respectively left him high and dry. He renounced active politics in 2015 when he was offered the Governorship of Tripura by the BJP government at the Centre.

But where he lacks, he makes up elsewhere. Easily one of the most academically accomplished politicians in the state, Tathagata Roy graduated as a civil engineer from the prestigious Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur (now IIEST) and holds a law degree from Calcutta University. He was the founder of the Construction Engineering department at Jadavpur University, prior to which he worked as General Manager, RITES, Indian Railways, and as Chief Engineer, Design, with Metro Railway, Kolkata.

At a time when academic mediocrity largely dominates the political milieu of the country including West Bengal, Roy stands out as an exception to the trend and one that very few leaders in his party can match.

It’s a quality that can cut corners in a state like Bengal which has already had the taste of ‘Poriborton’ and would sooner rather than later, choose its next political course. In a battle that could go down to the wire, it’s the leadership face that could make all the difference.