TMC foils ‘defection’ plans: Satabdi cancels Shah meet

Didi’s nephew placates 3-time MP after she quits govt post

Putting at rest speculation about her imminent defection to the BJP ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections, three-time Trinamul Congress MP of Birbhum Satabdi Roy cancelled her New Delhi visit on Saturday after a meeting with her party leadership on Friday evening.

She was due to meet Union home minister

Amit Shah in the national capital on Saturday as she quit as a member of Tarapeeth Development Council under the Mamata Banerjee government’s municipal affairs and urban development department, complaining about her inability to work independently in the state’s ruling party.

The actor-parliamentarian’s U-turn came after

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh took her to the south Kolkata residence of the CM’s MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee, also the party’s youth president, in a last-ditch move to foil her defection to the saffron party after BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy’s call to her.

At the meeting, Mr Banerjee placated Ms Roy and persuaded her to stay in the party, sources revealed. “I am

continuing with the TMC because of Didi. I will not go to Delhi. I have told Abhishek everything I needed to,” Ms Roy said.

She earlier voiced her discord with the TMC for the first time through the “Satabdi Roy Fans’ Club” in Facebook on Thursday, and made it clear she felt that as an MP there was no harm in her meeting Mr Shah as he was the country’s home minister.

“As an MP I can meet anyone. Mr Shah is known to me. We come across each other in Parliament. We may meet on Saturday. But nothing is so far confirmed,” she had said earlier on Friday.

In an oblique reference to the rule of TMC strongman and Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal, Ms Roy claimed: “When I was elected as an MP in 2009, all called me a star and not a politician who would perform. But I proved them wrong. Today I get to hear about my absence in my Lok Sabha constituency. I feel bad about it because I am answerable to the public. I cannot just draw my salary and watch TV sitting idle. But it is not my fault. In reality, I am not invited to party events in my constituency. What should I be then blamed for? The party did not make me. I was already a star when I joined it.”