Rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mukul Roy on Wednesday formally quit the party and resigned from Rajya Sabha after he met the Upper House chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to submit his resignation.
Roy said that he was quitting with a “heavy heart” adding that all members in a party “should be comrades and not servants”.
All should be “comrades in a party and not servants. But the one-man parties do not work like that,” the leader, who was once the second-in-command in the TMC after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was quoted by PTI.
There are speculations that Roy, who’s facing several corruption charges, may join the BJP. There has been visible disquiet in the state unit of the BJP over the saffron party’s desire to induct him in the party.
“Inducting Mukul Roy will do harm to the image of the party. He has several corruption cases against him and inducting him would mean we are also a part of that baggage,” a senior state BJP leader was quoted by Outlook.
Mukul Roy fell out with the Bengal chief minister in January 2015 when he was grilled by CBI in the Saradha ponzi scam. Unlike other lawmakers of the party, who were arrested, he emerged smiling. Many in the party had begun to question what he had told CBI. The suspicion was that it was a lot, to save his own skin, reported NDTV.
Roy was suspended for six years for “anti-party activities” by the TMC following his announcement on September 25 that he would resign from the party after Durga Puja.
