Is TMC on expansion mode with return of turncoats?

The return of Trinamul Congress' prodigal son (read leader) Mukul Roy has opened a pandora's box of the sort. When Roy had left Trinamul Congress and joined the BJP, he was TMC's all India general secretary, MP and one of the founding members of Mamata Banerjee's party. Four years down the road, when he left the Saffron brigade and joined back TMC, he was the national vice-president of the BJP and party's newly elected MLA.

When he had deserted the TMC, many from the TMC leadership and many more from the party's rank followed suit. And now soon after his re-switching of the camp, many from the Saffron camp (mostly TMC turncoats) have moved one step forward towards coming back to the TMC fold all over again.

This is exactly what BJP was doing before the recently concluded polls in the state- breaking TMC piece by piece. Whether Mamata Banerjee or TMC would accept all these turncoats back in the party fold remains to be seen. But quite similar to the scenes at state BJP circles before the polls (when party supporters were up in arms against the party leadership for indiscriminately taking in people from the opponent camp), TMC supporters and activists have also hit the streets protesting and likely move to take back these 'backstabbers.'

Mamata Banerjee, on the day of rejoining of Mukul Roy, made it clear that while the party is sympathetic to former party colleagues who are repenting having joined the BJP, it will be discrete and choosy about taking all of them back. However, defining this clearly and identifying the right candidates for a return journey will be a huge challenge.

Except for Roy, whose organisational, administrative acumen and networking capabilities are unquestionable, the party, after its resounding victory in the recent polls, doesn't need all these dissidents back in the fold.

From Mamata Banerjee's perspectives, her one point agenda might be to single out and corner Suvendu Adhikari and the Adhikai family. She would also like to teach the leadership of Modi-Shah a literally good lesson. And to serve that purpose she may like to bring back as many people as possible from the BJP camp and turn it into a mere signboard organisation in the state. But she will certainly have to keep in mind the feelings and sentiments of the party supporters on ground zero.

When it comes to Mukul Roy, there are other considerations and other factors. This has come at a time when the party sincerely wants to branch out and move out of Bengal, by all means. And it was Roy who, during his earlier stint in the party, had been instrumental in spreading party's wings to neighbouring north-eastern states like Tripura, Assam, Manipur and places like Varanasi, where there is a large concentration of Bong diaspora.

The party may like to re-initiate that move now that Roy is back in the fold. Also, mind you that it has come up at a time when the Congress is getting increasingly weakened by the day. Many staunch Congressmen, who may have reservations about joining the Saffron party, might find TMC to be the right alternative platform. This may jolly well be the right time to be on an expansion mode outside Bengal.