MUKUL ROY WANTS TO MEET RSS CHIEF, MAY REVIVE PARTY

Intense speculation this Durga Puja in West Bengal over the future of senior Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy all converged to one point – the veteran leader who was once chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s closest aide is likely to form his own party that will be close to the BJP.

Roy himself has indicated nothing. But sources close to him told HT that he will visit Delhi on October 8. He has already resigned from the party’s working committee.

“Mukul Roy is likely to be with the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC), the party his close followers formed in 2015 after he was sidelined in the Trinamool Congress,” said a close associate of the former Union railway minister (March-September 2012).

Majumdar had gone to Election Commission and obtained a symbol for the party.

Sources said Roy has sought a meeting with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat when the latter speaks in Kolkata on Tuesday. But the Sangh didn’t confirm such a meeting. Over the past weeks, Roy met various BJP leaders.

The saffron party’s top leaders have repeatedly said that none involved in the Saradha and Narada scam will be spared – and Roy is allegedly in both scandals.

If BJP allows Roy to join, it has to surrender the plank of anticorruption. However, ironically, BJP badly needs the service of a man like Roy, who knows the TMC machinery so well.

KOLKATA: