Rajib Banerjee, a former cabinet minister in Mamata Banerjee's last government who had joined the BJP before the Assembly elections, is criticising the saffron party quite frequently these days.
On Wednesday, Rajib made an outburst against the BJP leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari.
Rajib said, "I will urge leader of the opposition to stop criticising the state government and instead see that the prices of petrol and diesel could be brought down."
But a question remains: Will such an attack on Adhikari smooth Rajib's re-entry into TMC?
Since the Assembly election result, Rajib had been criticising BJP leaders of West Bengal for "disturbing Mamata Banerjee" all the time.
"Why can't they accept the people's mandate?" he had asked several times.
Not only did Rajib lose as a BJP candidate in Howrah, his home base, the saffron party drew a blank in the Assembly elections in Howrah as it could not win any of the 16 seats in the district. The BJP had inducted several TMC leaders into the party from Howrah before the elections.
But the change of mind of Rajib after the election, and his series of outbursts against the BJP leadership, have not made things easier for Rajib to get back into the TMC. The main hurdles for his re-entry have been the vehement opposition from senior TMC leaders Kalyan Banerjee and Arup Roy, who also hails from Howrah. Their argument is Rajib used personnel from the Central security forces assigned to protect him to torture local TMC workers. Kalyan is chief whip of the TMC in the Lok Sabha, while Roy is a senior cabinet minister.
"Also he tried to do irreparable damage to the party by creating a communal flare-up in sensitive Howrah district, which has large Muslim population," TMC leaders have complained to Mamata.
Kalyan Banerjee confirmed the allegations against Rajib.
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"It is true that he caused damage to the party and also he was proved worthless as we got all the seats from the [Howrah] district. I told Mamata di not to take him. But even if she takes him back, then what can I say? We would have to work with him. But I never hid my opinion about him from top party leadership," said Kalyan Banerjee.
Rajib's return has thus been blocked for the time being as even local leaders in Howrah are opposing it. Rajib, however, is doing everything to negate the poor impression about him. A few days ago, Rajib met senior TMC minister Partha Chatterjee at the latter's house after the death of Chatterjee's mother. He also met with TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh at his residence.
Despite all these overtures, it remains to be seen whether hurdles are removed soon for re-entry of Rajib into TMC.