Sovan Chatterjee gets 'Y-plus' security cover, fuels speculations of return to TMC

BJP leader Sovan Chatterjee was accorded 'Y-plus' category security cover by the state government, triggering speculations of his return to the Trinamool Congress. Chatterjee got the security cover from the state government, just days after he took Bhai Phota rituals at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence.

Chatterjee, however, remained tight-lipped about the development. While reacting to it, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh mocked Chatterjee and said maybe the state government decided to return him the security cover after the terror attack in Kashmir, where five Bengali labourers were killed.

Senior TMC leader and state Food Supplies Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick said he was confident about Chatterjee's return to the party. According to sources, Chatterjee, after joining the BJP on August 14, had to give away his "Y" category security cover provided by the state government.

He had appealed to the Union Home Ministry to provide him security cover. But his pleas didn't yield any results.

"So Sovan Chatterjee getting back his security cover just after Bhai Phota is very much a clear indication that his return to the TMC is just a matter of time," a senior TMC leader said. In an apparent hint of his return to the ruling TMC, Chatterjee on Tuesday visited the residence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the occasion of Bhai Phonta.

A miffed BJP put up a brave face and said, "Religious festivals and social occasions should be kept above petty politics." Chatterjee, along with his friend Baisakhi Bandopadhyay, had joined the BJP in New Delhi on August 14.

However, he has not been seen in any public programme of the saffron party since then. He was even seen missing during BJP working president J P Nadda's visit to Kolkata in September.

Bandopadhyay had claimed that Chatterjee had expressed his desire to quit the saffron party for being "regularly humiliated" but he did not make any public announcement regarding this. According to TMC sources, Chatterjee has been sending feelers to the party leadership as he has not been very happy with the developments since his joining the saffron camp.

Chatterjee had been a two-time mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, besides being a minister. Mamata Banerjee is known to have played a key role in shaping his political career, which like her had begun in the Youth Congress before reaching the top echelons of the TMC.

Chatterjee was asked by Banerjee to resign from the post of the minister and the mayor in November 2018 following problems in his personal life.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)