Mukul Roy quits Trinamool, Rajya Sabha membership

Trinamool Congress cofounder Mukul Roy (63), who helped West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee build the party in 1998, quit the party as well as the Rajya Sabha membership on Wednesday, a fortnight after he was suspended for six years for “anti-party activities”.

Camping in Delhi since last week, he met Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to submit his resignation from the House, seven months before completion of his term.

Once considered party chief Mamata Banerjee’s Man Friday and the second-in-command of the party, Roy was suspended on the suspicion of hobnobbing with the BJP. He was sidelined in the party after becoming embroiled in the Saradha case.

Roy, who was the railway minister for seven months in 2011 succeeding Banerjee who shifted to Kolkata as the CM, told reporters at his official residence that he has quit as a Rajya Sabha member of the TMC as also from the party’s primary membership, adding that he was compelled to quit the party “with a heavy heart and heavy pain”.

On a query whether he would be joining BJP, Roy skirted the question, saying he would take a long holiday and then decide what to do.

Speculation of his entry into BJP arose from his meeting with the BJP’s Bengal incharge general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya at the residence of party vice-president Om Mathur on Monday. He had also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last week.