As the BJP thrashed in the throes of crisis on Friday, its former strategist Sudheendra Kulkarni announced his “great admiration” for Mamata Banerjee, an ex-ally with whom the party ended its relationship late last year.

Kulkarni — once a close aide of both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani — “ended his active association” with the BJP last Saturday, saying he had come to the “painful realisation” that he could no longer “meaningfully contribute” to the BJP, with which he had developed irreconcilable “ideological differences”.

This week, Kulkarni was appointed member of an

advisory panel in the Railway Ministry headed by Mamata. Today, he said the Trinamool Congress chief had emerged as a “different leader”,

who was all set to take over the reins from the Left in West Bengal.

“What you are seeing today is a different leader (Mamata). I have great admiration for her. There is hardly any leader of national standing as simple, austere and dedicated to people’s welfare,” Kulkarni told The Indian Express.

Mamata, Kulkarni said, represented “change”, and it was a “foregone conclusion” that she would decisively defeat the Left in the assembly polls scheduled for 2011. Kulkarni, who began his politics with the communists, said the Left was a “tired party”.

The Trinamool believes it will benefit from association with Kulkarni. “In the run up to the assembly polls and also after it, we need people like Kulkarni. We hardly have any person of such national standing in our party,” said a Trinamool leader who is certain the Left will lose the elections.

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