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Who is Mukul Roy?
Mukul Roy is an Indian politician from West Bengal. He is the national vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Born on April 17, 1954, Roy has served as the 32nd Railway Minister of India. Mukul Roy made his political mark with the All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) and was considered a close associate of West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee. He joined BJP after his name came up in the Saradha scam and had a fall out with Banerjee.
In the West Bengal Assembly election 2021, Mukul Roy is contesting from Krishnanagar Uttar constituency.
Mukul Roy's early life
Mukul Roy's early life
Roy was born in 1954 in Kanchrapara in the district of North 24 Parganas in West Bengal. He did his graduation in BSc from Calcutta University. Later in 2006, he earned a degree of MA in public administration from the Madurai Kamaraj University.
Mukul Roy's political journey
He started his political career with Youth Congress and became close to Mamata Banerjee who was also a Youth Congress leader at that time. Later, Roy and Mamata Banerjee, along with other leaders, broke away from the Congress to form the All India Trinamool Congress in January 1998. Immediately afterwards, Roy was made the face of the party in New Delhi. He was also made the general secretary of the party in 2006.
Mukul Roy made his electoral debut in 2001 when he fought the Assembly elections on a TMC ticket from Jagatdal constituency and came in second with a total of 56,741 votes. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2006 and became the leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha for 3 years beginning 2009. Under the UPA 2 government, Roy was made the Minister of State (MoS) in the Ministry of Shipping and then later was made the MoS in the Railway ministry after Banerjee resigned. In 2012, when another party colleague, Dinesh Trivedi, who has also shifted allegiance to the BJP, was forced by Banerjee to resign as the Railway minister because of the announcement of an increase in passenger fares in the Railway Budget, Roy became the new Railway Minister.
However, Roy’s TMC career came to an end after his name cropped up in the Saradha scam. His name also came up in the Narada sting operation where several politicians, including TMC leaders, were allegedly involved. After this, Roy had a fall out with the party and Banerjee. He was later suspended from TMC for anti-party activities. He met BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Kailash Vijayvargiya before resigning from TMC. He also resigned from the Rajya Sabha on October 11, 2017.
In November 2017, Roy formally joined the BJP. Since then, he has played an instrumental role in poaching other TMC leaders for the BJP, weakening Mamata Banerjee’s party ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.