Mukul Roy quits, TMC heaves sigh of relief

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday rubbished the allegation levelled by its former leader Mukul Roy against the party and accused him of acting as a BJP agent to save himself from the CBI, which is investigating the Narada and Saradha cases, in which his name has cropped up. Roy, who quit the TMC and his Rajya Sabha seat on Wednesday, said after his resignation that all the members in a political party should be comrades and not servants.

Responding to the charges, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee said that Roy had been secretly maintaining a relationship with the BJP leaders for the past four years and tried to weaken the TMC from within. He added that Roy got inclined to the BJP and tried to lobby with those leaders in Delhi after he was summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the Saradha incident.

Chatterjee also asked why Roy had stayed silent till today.

"Why is he speaking out now? What prompted him to keep mum for so long? The day CBI went after him, he felt the need to take refuge with the BJP. He is a traitor. No one has indulged in such treachery against Mamata Banerjee like him," Chatterjee told reporters in Kolkata. "Our party has been saved with his exit."

Chatterjee denied Roy's claim that Mamata Banerjee had asked him to meet Ashok Singhal, a senior leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Chatterjee also negated Roy's claim that the Trinamool had a connection with the RSS way back in 2003. He said that Roy's claim is utterly baseless and false as the TMC had no connection with the RSS. Chatterjee also dared Roy to produce documents if he had any in support of his claim. During his press conference, Chatterjee also questioned the timing of Roy's statements on the coalition of the Trinamool Congress with the NDA and UPA governments. Roy claimed that the Trinamool Congress was a part of the NDA government in 1998 and Mamata Banerjee had become the Railway minister under the NDA government in 2001.

Roy recalled: "In fact, till 2007 we were with the NDA. In 2009, TMC joined UPA-2, but within few years we left it on flimsy grounds. From 2012-2014 we were in fact the main opposition party against Congress both inside and outside Parliament."