Trinamool warns Mukul Roy about his meetings with BJP leaders

Kolkata, Sep 22 (IANS) West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Friday issued a strict warning to its sidelined leader Mukul Roy, saying the party was keeping a close watch on his purported meetings with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.

"We have read reports and got to know about incidents of Mukul Roy meeting some BJP leaders, without the knowledge of the party... seemingly he met them in his personal capacity," Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee told the media here.

Chatterjee said only Roy could say why he was meeting the BJP leaders.

Stressing that the BJP was Trinamool's arch political rival, Chatterjee said anybody keeping close relations with the party could not be considered a friend by the Trinamool.

"We are not going to tolerate it. If he crosses his limits, the party leadership will speak to him," he said.

A series of recent developments have led to the perception that Roy, completely sidelined in the party, was scouting for other avenues.

Apart from meeting BJP leaders, Roy two days back sent back the state police personnel providing him Z category security cover after Chief Minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee, in a recent organisational reshuffle, abolished the Vice President's post he had been holding for over a year.

Roy was also kept away from several party programmes, and sacked as the party in-charge of Tripura.

This is the second time that Roy has been estranged in the Trinamool.

For long considered the second-in-command of Banerjee's Trinamool and credited as the architect of its electoral successes, Roy first Afell out with party following his grilling by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in January 2015 in connection with the Saradha ponzi scam.

After the CBI summoned him for questioning, Roy had gone against the Trinamool line that the CBI was targeting the party, and said in early 2015 that he would "fully cooperate" with the probe agency.

As Roy - a former railway minister - started skipping Trinamool meetings, Banerjee stripped him of all his posts, and relegated him to the Rajya Sabha back benches. There was much speculation of Roy either floating a new political outfit or join some other party particularly the Congress.

However, the mending of fences started after Roy and Banerjee exchanged pleasantries in Parliament, during the Chief Minister's visit to New Delhi in December that year.

Subsequently he found his way into a Trinamool delegation that met then Union Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla in Delhi signalling his return to the Trinamool mainstream.

In subsequent months, Roy regained a substantial portion of his earlier clout, and was made the party Vice President in 2016. He was one of the generals of the party in the 2016 assembly polls, which Trinamool swept.

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