A day after his party’s dismal performance in the KMC polls, veteran BJP leader Tathagata Roy slammed the state leadership, saying the party is being run by a bunch of “rotten debauch-cum-traitors”.

On Tuesday, West Bengal’s ruling TMC gained control of the 144-member Kolkata Municipal Corporation, clinching 134 seats, in an emphatic endorsement for the party seven months after its landslide win in the state assembly polls.

The BJP, which lost much of its steam after the assembly poll defeat, managed to win just three wards, the Congress and the CPI (M)-led Left Front two, and Independents three.

“Hindu Bengalis seem headed for doom and extinction. Their principal abode, the state of West Bengal, has been a Kakistocracy*, ruled by a bunch of soul-destroyers for the last 44 years. *Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power*,” Roy, a former governor of Tripura and Meghalaya, tweeted.

“BJP, who could have resurrected it, was left to be run by a bunch of thoroughly rotten debauch-cum-traitors. The result was the Assembly election debacle of 2021. And because there was no serious course correction thereafter, the rout in Municipal elections. #KakistocracyWestBengal,” he said in a series of tweets.

The Left Front, despite the mauling, finished second only to the TMC in terms of vote share and, in a majority of the wards, it pushed the BJP to the third position.

Continuing his tirade against the state leadership, Roy said he has pointed out the lacunae at party forums on numerous occasions, but nothing was done to rectify the mistakes.

“Some people are feeling bad about my comments against BJP publically. I am also upset about it. But there is no other way; I have said those things secretly at party forums, but it did not have not been any result. It doesn’t matter whether I am alive or dead. What is important is the defeat of the Hindu Bengalis is imminent,” he wrote.

Roy, who has been attacking the party’s West Bengal leadership since the assembly poll debacle, had said last month he has decided to bid “farewell” to the state unit of the BJP for the time being, a remark that was interpreted as an indication that he will hold fire. He had said he would wait to see the municipal poll results.

West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar declined to comment, saying only Roy can speak speak for his statements.

Roy had been critical of the decisions taken by BJP’s West Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya, now the party’s national vice president Dilip Ghosh, and senior leaders Arvind Menon and Shiv Prakash, and blamed them for the party’s poor show in the assembly elections.