A day after Mamata Banerjee stripped Mukul Roy off all his political ‘decorations’, he refused to betray emotions iterating on Sunday he was “enjoying the current proceedings.” However, for the first time a section of Trinamool leaders publicly came out against the Bengal Chief Minister’s ex-blue-eyed-boy saying he had been “consumed by the BJP” and was “following the instructions of Arun Jaitley.”
When asked to comment on being removed as the party’s general secretary, its leader of the Rajya Sabha the former Trinamool parliamentary party chairman said he had “nothing to say about the prerogatives that completely belongs to the party leadership” adding he would even gladly accept his expulsion. “I am enjoying the current proceedings” he said stoically insisting he “will never fade away” and was “very much in politics and will continue to be so in future.”
Hitherto regarded as the backroom engineer of Trinamool’s rise to ascendency Roy had reportedly applied to the House Committee of Parliament to allot him a separate accommodation as he was unwilling to stay at his current South Avenue address.
On whether Banerjee was justified in giving him unceremonious shove the Trinamool leader said “time is the best judge of all acts and events and it will tell whatever is happening today will be accepted or rejected by the people.”
Sources close to Roy also said that he had been contacted by the Congress. This was proved by an open invitation to him by PCC president Adhir Chowdhury who said “the Trinamool Congress is a by-product of the Congress and its leaders come from the same Congress culture. So our party will have no problem in accepting anyone who comes in from that party.”
Meanwhile for the first time the Trinamool leadership launched verbal attacks on Roy saying he was back-stabbing the party. “Mukul Roy has been consumed by the BJP and anyone who is in that party’s grip is bound to fall. That is what has happened to him” Bengal Minister Sadhan Pandey said wondering “why Mukul did not tell the party chief about what he had been asked and what he told the CBI.”
Another leader and Mayor-in-council of Kolkata Corporation Atin Ghosh said, “Roy was never number two in the party. He also said that in 1998 every one knew that Mamata Banerjee was forming a new party. He was not a leader but only a clerk or an associate of Mamata Banerjee who did the clerical works.”