Kolkata: Days after expressing his desire to return to active politics in West Bengal, Meghalaya Governor and former BJP leader Tathagata Roy said that he is willing to accept any role the party entrusts him with.
The 74-year-old former West Bengal BJP president, however, evaded a direct reply when asked whether he would like to be the face of the party in the state assembly polls due next year, saying “It is for the party leadership to decide”.
“My tenure as Governor ended in May. I am still here just because of the COVID situation. Once my tenure ends and I go back to Kolkata, I would like to return to active politics and take up any role the BJP offers to me”
Roy told PTI
Roy said that he had informed the party leadership long back that he wants to return to active politics.
“I don’t know why everybody is talking about it now,” he said.
Roy was the state BJP president from 2002 to 2006 and a member of the party’s national executive between 2002 and 2015.
He was appointed as the governor of Tripura in May 2015 and later took over as the governor of Meghalaya in August 2018.
Earlier on Sunday, Roy had told PTI, without naming anyone, said he feels that certain statements by Bengal BJP leaders have done “more harm than good to the party”.
“In West Bengal, the North Indian culture of ‘Gai Hamari Mata Hain’ (the cow is our mother) won’t work.
Statements such as cow’s milk have gold or cow urine can cure COVID-19 won’t help the BJP in West Bengal,” he had said.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh in November last year said that the milk of Indian cows contains gold.
Although Ghosh declined to comment on Roys statement, a section of the party leadership felt that the comments were aimed at him.
“I don’t want to comment on this matter as I have not heard those statements,” Ghosh said.
The state is scheduled to go to Assembly elections in April or May next year.