Ex-TMC min Rajib Banerjee returns to Mamata’s flock

KOLKATA: Less than a month after being made a special invitee to BJP's national executive, former Bengal minister Rajib Banerjee on Sunday returned to Trinamool Congress with regret on his lips for the brief tryst with saffron and new-found respect for Mamata Banerjee as "not only Bengal's mother but the country's, too".
"I was wrong. We were wrong," Rajib, among the first of the Trinamool turncoats to cross over to BJP before the polls, said in Agartala. "I failed to appreciate chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s worth...BJP thrives only on votes and power."
MP and Trinamool's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee handed the party flag to the ex-minister at the rally. "I have long ties with Tripura, my relatives and friends stay here. And it is from them that I learnt how hollow these double-engine claims (of BJP) are. Tripura supposedly has a double engine, yet it does not have a single social welfare scheme like that of single-engine Bengal. By the time I understood that, it was too late," Rajib said.
Rajib had met Abhishek on August 7, over two months after his poll drubbing in Howrah’s Domjur, where he lost by over 33,000 votes. As a TMC member, he had won the same seat twice, in 2011 and 2016.
"I didn’t agree with the personal attacks, had spoken out against it. Given our culture and mentality, I also couldn’t agree to this politics of religion, race, division and hatred," he said. "I had repeatedly raised several issues with the leadership, but was always told 'hobe' (it will happen)."
Asish Das, a former BJP legislator from Tripura’s Surma, also defected to TMC at the rally. Das had quit BJP on October 5 and shaved his head in Kolkata's Kalighat as an "act of penance".
In a statement, Trinamool said it "wholeheartedly welcomed" Rajib back to the party fold. But there were immediate rumblings within the party over his homecoming. MP Kalyan Banerjee, who had led the charge against the former MLA in Domjur, said, "The leadership had said anyone who had hurt the sentiments of party workers will not find a place in TMC again."
Referring to the MP as "a respected guardian", Rajib said, "He has expressed his personal feelings. The party’s leadership has decided to take me back."
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh said Rajib's short-lived association with his party wasn't surprising. "That he would return to TMC was known to all. They had a no-entry board till now – he went back the day they removed it."