Kolkata: With the dates of the general elections already announced, there are speculations that top Congress leaders from Bengal might join the saffron camp.
According to BJP sources, senior BJP leader Mukul Roy is likely to meet senior Congress leader Deepa Das Munshi at his Delhi residence on Sunday.
The sources stated that Deepa might join the saffron camp as she is miffed with the state Congress’ decision to not contest from the Raigunj seat as a gesture of goodwill to sitting CPM MP Md. Salim.
“Munshi considers Raigunj as the citadel of the Congress since it has sent her late husband Priya Ranjan Das Munshi to Parliament. Now when the Congress decided to leave the seat to the Left Front, Munshi has taken strong exception,” the sources said.
Till the time of reporting this Deepa was unavailable to comment.
It can be recalled that over the last few weeks the Left and the Congress had a spat over their seat sharing issue for the upcoming polls.
The CPM was firm on not giving up its claim on the two sitting Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in favour of the Congress, which had created a major roadblock in the seat-sharing talks between the two parties.
The Marxists were always ready to back the Congress in Baharampur, Jangipur, North Malda and South Malda from where the latter won in 2014, though North Malda MP Mousam Noor switched to the Trinamool Congress a month back.
Speculations over Deepa being miffed with the state Congress started since then. It is also pertinent to mention that Deepa had started her campaign in Raiganj much before the Left Front announced Salim as their candidate from that seat.
Amid the seat-sharing talks between the CPM and the Congress in the state, the Left Front on March 8 had announced candidates for Raiganj and Murshidabad Lok Sabha seats.
Mohammed Salim and Badaruddoza Khan would contest from Raiganj and Murshidabad Lok Sabha seats, respectively, chairman of the CPM-led Left Front Biman Bose said.
“We have decided that we won’t field candidates in the four Lok Sabha seats won by the Congress last time,” Bose said on Friday.
However, it can be recalled that Das Munshi was defeated by Md. Salim in the 2014 Lok Sabha election by a slender margin.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, one of the tallest leaders of Congress in Bengal, was a former union minister and a member of the 14th Lok Sabha. Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, the youth Congress president in West Bengal and along with the then Chatra Parishad president Subrata Mukherjee, currently a cabinet member of TMC, worked over time to establish Chattra Parishad units in different colleges and universities of Calcutta in 1969.
Das Munshi got elected for the first time to Parliament from South Kolkata constituency defeating a CPM stalwart Ganesh Ghosh,who was convicted in the historic Chittagong armoury raid and was sent to Andaman.
This victory shot him to the limelight and made him an overriding factor in the Youth Congress when Naxalite unions and CPM-led students federation of India (SFI) had an ironic grip over students' movement in West Bengal and the students' unions of different colleges and universities.
Later, Das Munshi got elected from Howrah Lok Sabha seat defeating the sitting CPM MP Susanta Ranjan Chakraborty. Das Munshi was then inducted to the union ministry as information and broadcasting minister.
However, in a subsequent election, he was defeated by the then Howrah municipality mayor Swadesh Chakraborty in the Lok Sabha elections.
After a gap of few years he got elected from Raiganj and got cleared a unit of AIIMS in Raiganj. After Mamata Banerjee became the chief minister, she managed to shift the proposed AIIMS unit from Raiganj. Then he fell sick and was admitted to AIIMS, Delhi, for a long time. He was there on life support. After surviving on life support for nine years Das Munshi breathed his last on November 20, 2017.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury rubbishes rumours
Another speculation that former state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury joining the saffron camp made it to the headlines for some time.
Turning down the speculations, Chowdhury on Sunday said that he was not joining the BJP and also alleged that the TMC was purposely spreading rumours to break other parties.
“These are all rumours that are being circulated by the ruling Trinamool Congress to misguide the Congress followers who are in high spirit to take the ruling TMC by horns. I was always loyal to my party and would stay the same,” said Chowdhury.
The CPI(M) won the two seats in a four-cornered contest, though they have been traditional Congress strongholds. While Uttar Dinajpur's Raiganj has been a pocket borough of Congress stalwart Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Murshidabad's politics has been dominated by the party's firebrand leader Adhir Chowdhury, who is also a vociferous supporter of the alliance with Left.
The two seats, which were the only ones won by the CPM in the last Lok Sabha polls, have been the bone of contention between the two sides since the beginning of discussions.
The Congress argues that the two areas are traditional Congress bastions and the party lost the seats in 2014 by narrow margins.