Trinamool Congress’ “chanakya” and former Railway Minister Mukul Roy on Monday announced his decision to quit the party positions and also from the Rajya Sabha after Durga Puja, prompting the TMC to place him under immediate suspension.
Roy, who had co-founded the Bengal ruling outfit with Mamata Banerjee (then a rebel Congress leader) in 1997, was shown the doors for “anti-party activities,” Trinamool general secretary and Minister Partho Chatterjee said wondering as to “what stopped him from quitting the party right now.”
“The Rajya Sabha member had been trying to weaken the party for quite some time. But he forgot Mamata’s contribution to his life. She made him an MP and all that he is today. He was made somebody from nobody and yet this old fox has betrayed the party. I wonder what more he wanted,” said Chatterjee, while announcing Roy’s suspension from the party for six years.
His suspension has been recommended to our party president Mamata Banerjee, he added.
The development came within a few days of Roy handing over some crucial files to the Central Bureau of Investigation in its Delhi office. The files could contain information on his erstwhile party’s income and expenditure sheets as well as the price Chief Minister’s paintings fetched her, insiders said.
“I co-founded the party in December 1997 and had been associated with its good and bad days. But now I have to announce with heavy heart that I am quitting the party after the Durga Pujas. I will also resign from my Rajya Sabha post though there is good 8 months left for my term to end,” said Roy, adding he had been on various posts of responsibility but “now I am just an ordinary member. I am only a Trinamool Working Committee member now and that too I am quitting.”
On why he was not quitting now he said, “This is not the right time to quit the party so I will do that after the Pujas when the people will listen to me with more attention. I will tell them why I left the party.”
Distance between Roy, once an undeclared “number two man” of the party and the Chief Minister had been widening ever since he deposed before the CBI in the Sharada chit fund case more than a year ago and allegedly revealing to the investigating agency a large part of Trinamool’s dark secret.
He was removed from the party’s vice-president.
“Under pressure from an investigating agency he has bartered away the party’s interests with his own,” Chatterjee said. The party had reportedly cautioned Roy for hobnobbing with the BJP leadership, sources said.
The party was not happy with the way he had been frequently meeting top BJP leaders in Delhi which was why the Chief Minister had decided not to re-nominate him to the Rajya Sabha for the third time.
On whether he would join the BJP, Roy said he would make his plans clear after the Durga Pujas.