Arindam
Sarkar
He
was Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Man Friday. He conducted the elections for
the Trinamool Congress and on behalf of the party interacted with the election
commission. As the general secretary of the party, he looked after the
organization matters. He scheduled Mamata’s campaigns and district visits.
Former Railways Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy was no rookie in the
party.
Mukul
was at the center of Trinamool power and activities since the foundation of the
party in 1997. But all his influence and power diminished when the CBI
investigating into the ponzy scam interrogated him in early 2015. Rumour spread
that Mukul had compromised his leader and party during the interrogation. Soon,
Mamata clipped his authority and sidelined him in the Trinamool.
In
the summer of 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi splashed the country with
the BJP wave and Mamata Banerjee campaigned hard to retain the 19 parliamentary
constituencies for the Trinamool Congress in Bengal, her lieutenant Mukul Roy
was convinced they would win 35 Lok Sabha seats.
Even
the optimists in the Trinamool did not believe the Rajya Sabha MP. But the
Trinamool’s organizer par excellence was spot on. With Mamata’s mass magic and
Mukul’s organizational skill, the party bagged 34 parliamentary seats.
No
wonder, the CBI summons to interrogate Mukul Roy on the Sharada scam cast a
gloom over the party headquarters – Trinamool Bhavan – and on the party rank
and file.
The importance of being Mukul Roy is not lost on Mamata
Banerjee too. The CBI summons to the Trinamool No 2 disturbed party chief
Mamata Banerjee the most. For in the last one decade she has come to depend on
Mukul not only for shaping up the party organisation but also to advice her in
taking major political decisions in the State and national affairs.
Mukul, who knows the geography of Bengal like the back of
his hand, peaked as an organisational leader during the 2011 Assembly polls. He
helped Mamata to stub factionalism and field the right candidates for the
Trinamool.
“The massive mandate for the Trinamool catapulted Mukul’s
position in the party. Some said in the party that he was as good an organizer
as late Atulya Ghosh of the Congress,” said a Trinamool leader.
Mukul’s rise has not been easy. Throughout the Nineties and
the first decade of the 21st century, he spent most of his time in
the backroom of the party studying voting patterns, preparing voters’ list and
travelling to remote areas of Bengal to get information for Mamata, before she
went there to meet the people.
During the political clashes in Chota Angaria, Keshpur,
Nanoor, Nandigram, Netai and the farmers’ movement in Singur, it was Mukul who
first visited the place with the party workers and prepared the ground for
Mamata’s political meetings. “In Jungle Mahal too, it was only after Mukul
built up a party organisation there that Mamata visited the Maoist belt in
2008,” said a Trinamool leader.
Trinamool
insiders believe that like the CPI(M), during the Left Front regime, the BJP too
has targetted Mukul Roy. For, the political parties in Bengal believe if he can
be sidelined, then it would be a big blow to the Trinamool and Mamata.
“There
can be another MP, but there cannot be an organizer like Mukul Roy in
Trinamool. He is an asset to the party. And there is no replacement for him,”
said a Trinamool leader.
But
with Mukul’s relations with Mamata souring, his return to the top seems a
distant dream. What’s more, after Trinamool’s thumping victory in the recent
civic polls and the Assembly by-elections, Mamata is learnt to have indicted to
some close party leaders that it is not Mukul but she who always ran the party
and got the votes during the elections.
A section of the Trinamool leadership said, many leaders are
happy with the sidelining of Mukul, but the fact remains he is the man who
knows too much and has given too much to the Trinamool.
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