The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday suspended its legislator Subhrangshu Roy, the son of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mukul Roy, for his alleged anti-party activities.
“The party has decided to suspend Subhrangshu Roy for six years for anti-party utterances. Despite being with the party, he was humiliating the party and lowering its prestige in the public eye,” said Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee, adding that “nothing is bigger than party discipline”.
A former TMC leader, Mukul Roy had joined the saffron party in November 2017. As the convenor of the BJP’s Lok Sabha election management committee in West Bengal, Roy is seen as a key leader who helped the party make massive electoral gains in the state.Subhrangshu Roy won twice from the Bijpur assembly seat in North 24 Parganas district in 2011 and 2016. Bijpur falls under the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency. Before the Lok Sabha polls, he said that he would offer his assistance to Barrackpore’s TMC candidate Dinesh Trivedi in Bijpur. Trivedi lost the seat to BJP’s Arjun Singh.
“I had said that Bijpur will give a lead. But I failed. I forgot that Bijpur does not belong only to me. It also belongs to Mukul Roy, who created the party (TMC) single-handedly. Now, he has wrecked the party all over the state like Chanakya. I am proud of my father. I shall speak to him and decide my future,” he said at a press conference, drawing applause from supporters who shouted “Mukul Roy zindabad”.
Reacting to the suspension of his son from the TMC, Mukul Roy said, “If a father is constantly humiliated, no son can digest it endlessly.” He was referring to comments from a section of TMC leaders who purportedly call him a traitor.
Asked if Subhrangshu will follow him to the BJP, Mukul Roy said, “It’s is his decision and that of the BJP’s.”
The BJP bagged 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, while the TMC got 22 in a fiercely fought poll battle. The Congress won two seats.
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Mamata tweets poem in three languages
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday posted a poem titled, “I Do not agree” and its translation in Bengali and Hindi, on her Twitter handle.
“The colour of communalism, I do not believe in. There is aggression and tolerance in every religion. I am a humble servant of the gentle Renaissance raised in Bengal. I do not believe in selling religious aggression, (I) believe in a religion that draws light from humanism,” Banerjee wrote without mentioning any person, political party or the elections.
“Those who expediently use religion as a trump card and reside on mountains of riches. I keep myself engrossed in my numerous duties while you appear to have no such qualms,” Banerjee wrote. These lines, incidentally, sounded very similar to the allegations she made against the Bharatiya Janata Party during her 69-day campaign.
No TMC leader was willing to comment on the poem.