Present BJP poles apart from the BJP I joined, Yashwant Sinha writes

Sure of TMC's victory in the upcoming polls, Sinha said the BJP has no chief ministerial face in Bengal

A week after he joined the Trinamool Congress, former BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha said that the reason he left the saffron party was the 'Modi-Shah' duo and that the party is not the same as it were when he joined.

"I joined the BJP led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani and I served it loyally until 2014 when the leadership of the party was taken over by the Modi-Shah combine. Though I was not against their leading the party and the government. I had a premonition. I knew that I might not be able to serve the party with them at the helm because I had serious reservations about their style of functioning," Sinha wrote in a column for NDTV.

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Sinha, who was vocally against some of BJP's decisions even when he was in the party, said he started going public with his thoughts when he was dissatisfied with the party's stance. When that did not help, he quit the party.

When the senior politician had quit the BJP, he said he would retire from politics. " I tried to play a role in public life but realised that in today's politics you cannot do so in any meaningful way without a strong platform, which can only be a political party," he wrote.

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In the column, Sinha recalled working with TMC chief Mamata Banerjee in the Vajpayee cabinet. He added that she has been under siege by the Modi-Shah duo, but it cannot be denied that she has performed well as the CM of Bengal for 10 years.

Sinha, who was appointed TMC vice president, also believes that the BJP has created a hype around itself in Bengal which is out of proportion to a state-level election. "In the last assembly elections, BJP was able to win only 3 seats, but as a result of the weakening of the Left parties and Congress, it had come to occupy the main opposition space in Bengal. With 18 Lok Sabha seats in their bag, the BJP felt that the time had come for it to mount a challenge to Mamata's Trinamool Congress in the assembly elections," Sinha wrote.

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Criticising the party's approach in the eastern state, he said that the BJP has not projected the chief ministerial candidate because it does not have one, unlike TMC, which has Mamata.

Assured of the TMC's return to power, and urging people not to believe the crowds assembled at BJP rallies in Bengal, Sinha said people of Bengal know better. "It is Kolkata today, it will be Delhi tomorrow."