Will TMC Turncoat Rajib Banerjee’s Inclusion in National Executive Committee Be an Embarrassment For BJP?

A new NEC committee declared under BJP national president JP Nadda has been witnessing the inclusion of many names especially from Bengal. This list includes the likes of Mithun Chakraborty, Anirban Ganguly, Rupa Ganguli, newly appointed president Sukanto Majumdar among others. But the one name that drew everybody’s attention was that of former minister in the Mamata Banerjee government Rajib Banerjee.

Rajib had jumped ship from the TMC to the BJP before the 2021 assembly elections in Bengal and had contested from his constituency Domjur in the recently concluded polls on a BJP ticket where he lost the elections.

Since then in many of his public posts on social media Rajib has expressed his reservations about staying in the BJP and has constantly lauded the leadership of the TMC including chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee has also often expressed his desire to go back to his party TMC except for the fact that so far TMC has not given any direct indication and that several people within the TMC ranks have objected to his Ghar Vaapsi.

But why has Rajiv Banerjee been given a position in the national executive is a question that is not only being asked by the media at large but is one that is haunting the BJP state leadership in Bengal.

 A BJP member of Parliament from Bengal who does not wish to be named tells CNN News18, “Some of our leaders in Delhi think that Rajib is a big deal but they fail to understand that he will not stick around with the BJP for long and it’s just a matter of time before he goes back to the TMC,”.

Another senior party functionary from Bengal BJP tells CNN News18, “It will soon be an embarrassment given the fact that Rajiv will not stay with the BJP and will soon move to TMC..it in a way is to demote the seriousness on the position of the NEC”

Despite attempts to reach out to Rajib Banerjee on the matter he did not respond to our queries on the issue

Among the many tweets and social media posts that Rajib Banerjee has put out includes a recent one where he congratulates Mamata Banerjee for the stupendous win in the recently concluded Bhawanipur bypolls.

The 80-member national executive list has names ranging from PM Narendra Modi to veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.

Apart from the 80 regular members, the executive will have 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees.