Mukul Joins BJP, Indifferent TMC Says “He Lacks Mass Base”

The rouge TMC leader quit the party and his Rajya Sabha post last month.

The Trinamool Congress leadership refused to attach any importance to the recent induction of Mukul Roy into the BJP, only saying that he was a "traitor" with no popularity among the masses.

Senior TMC leader and Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation Sovan Chatterjee said the party was not at all bothered about Roy.

Do not have time to think about a person who does not have any mass base of his own. We have lot of work at hand and that needs to be done at the earliest.

Sovan Chatterjee

Another senior TMC leader and state Cabinet member Firhad Hakim advised Roy not to dream about dislodging the TMC government in the next West Bengal Assembly polls as it “might turn into a nightmare for him.”

He is a traitor who had betrayed the people of Bengal. He won’t be able to do any harm to the TMC. In our party, Mamata Banerjee holds the reins. It is good to dream, there is no harm in it... but his dreams should not turn into a nightmare.

Firhad Hakim, senior TMC leader and state Cabinet member 

After resigning from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) last month, Mukul Roy joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday, 3 November.

BJP held a press conference on Friday, 3 November, to make the announcement.

Addressing the media, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad described Roy as Bengal’s “most seasoned politician.” Roy said working with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah was a “privilege,” and called the BJP a “secular force, but not a communal one.”

One of the founding members of the TMC, Roy had earlier admitted that he was in constant touch with BJP leaders.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh had lauded Roy as a "good organiser," and said that he had made a "big contribution" to the growth of the TMC in Bengal, according to PTI

Also read: Mamata-Mukul Fallout: What Happened & What It Means for the TMC

Roy, who was once the second-in-command in the TMC, had resigned from the Rajya Sabha and quit the party last month.

He had said that the TMC would not have tasted success without the backing of the saffron outfit at the national level in its initial years.

In September this year, he was suspended from the TMC for six years for indulging in anti-party activities after he had announced that he would quit the party.

(With inputs from PTI)

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