The Trinamool claims 35 BJP MLAs are eager to return and are in touch with the leadership (File)
BJP leader Mukul Roy has added to his party's nervousness by skipping a key meeting in Kolkata. His silence on speculation that he is heading back to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has not helped.
The BJP has launched efforts to salvage its Bengal unit, with several leaders raising tough questions and not hiding their resentment after the party's election loss.
Besides Mukul Roy, who is BJP Vice-President, Suvendu Adhikari also failed to attend the meeting called by state chief Dilip Ghosh. Mr Adhikari is in Delhi for meetings with the leadership, sources pointed out, adding that Mr Roy's wife is in hospital so he could not get away.
Mr Roy has neither confirmed nor denied the rumours but his son Shubranshu has not ruled out a return to the Trinamool Congress.
Last week, Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee - recently elevated to a key post - visited Mr Roy in hospital and inquired after his wife. The very next morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him to ask about his wife's health.
The Trinamool claims 35 BJP MLAs are eager to return and are in touch with the leadership. The tables are turned, gloats the party that lost its leaders and MLAs to the BJP in the weeks before the Bengal election.
Amid signs of brewing rebellion and "reverse migration", the BJP's most prominent acquisition from the Trinamool, Mr Adhikari, met with Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda in Delhi. Today, he met PM Modi.
Two MPs, Arjun singh and Saumitra Khan are also heading to Delhi for meetings aimed at "feedback and review".
The party's strategy, both during and after the state election, has been called into question by Bengal leaders, especially those who ditched Mamata Banerjee just before the polls.
These leaders resent that the BJP brought in campaigners from outside for the state election instead of relying on the local leadership that delivered 18 of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. It was a "mistake" that helped Mamata Banerjee, they say, as she turned it into a "Mamata versus All" and a "Trinamool vs outsiders" fight.
Among the doubters is Trinamool alum and ex-minister Rajib Banerjee, who joined the BJP in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah after dramatically flying to Delhi in a private jet arranged by the ruling party.
Mr Banerjee has, in a Facebook post, questioned his new party's move to threaten President's rule in Bengal and the Centre's moves against Mamata Banerjee, who retained power by a landslide. The people of Bengal will not take it well, he says, and advises the party to focus on Covid and the aftermath of Cyclone Yaas.
Another former Trinamool leader, Sabyasachi Dutta -believed to be close to Mukul Roy and now with the BJP, told a local channel: "Getting leaders who can't speak Bengali to run the campaign was a mistake as there was a communication gap."