Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Senior politician Mukul Roy, a former Railway Minister from West Bengal, died early February 23 morning at a private hospital in Kolkata, his family has confirmed. He was 73. He breathed his last a little after 1.30 am, confirmed his son, Subhranshu Roy. He was under treatment for quite some time because of several medical complications, and he was not even responding to the treatment, according to his close associates.
Roy was once the second-in-command in Trinamool Congress as the party’s general secretary and the closest confidant of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He was among the first nine leaders who approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) to form a new political party — Trinamool Congress — in the late nineties, which Mamata Banerjee founded after she parted ways with Congress. A host of state Congress leaders in West Bengal had backed her.
Later, he served as Railways Minister, Union Minister of State for Shipping and Waterways, and Union Minister of State for Urban Development in Dr Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-II government, which started in 2009 with Trinamool Congress as the alliance partner.
However, over a period of time, he started distancing himself from the Trinamool Congress leadership, especially Mamata Banerjee. He was first removed from the chair of the party’s general secretary, and slowly, his participation in the party programmes started fading out. Finally, in 2017, he announced his decision to sever ties with Trinamool Congress and join the BJP. He even resigned from his chair as a Rajya Sabha member of Trinamool Congress. He continued with the BJP till 2021.
