The Bengal BJP camp couldn’t hide its glee with Suvendu Adhikari’s resignation from the state cabinet and several party leaders rolled out red carpet for him to join the saffron camp.
“This was bound to happen,”Dilip Ghosh, the party’s state president, said about Adhikari’s resignation on Friday. “This is the beginning of Trinamul’s end,” he added.
Asked if there were chances of Adhikari joining the BJP, Ghosh made it clear that the doors of the BJP were open for him. “He is a fighter. A mass leader. If he wants to come to BJP, he is welcome,” the Midnapore MP said.
BJP’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya went a step further while discussing the likely impact if Suvendu finally joins the saffron camp. “It will benefit us and our coming to power in Bengal will become a certainty,” he told reporters.
A section of BJP leaders said he might take the flag from party president J.P. Nadda during his visit to Calcutta on December 8 and 9. Some others feel he might make it official in Delhi in the first week of December.
“When he joins us, we will make inroads even into Muslim-dominated districts like Malda, Murshidabad and North Dinajpur along with the two Midnapores,” a source said.
A section of the party did not seem happy with the prospect of Suvendu joining the BJP. “We were told to work together to win the polls in 2021 and we have been doing so. But if leaders like Adhikari join us, there will be no place for us anymore,” a party old guard said.