Veteran Trinamool Congress leader and three-time MLA Tapas Roy on Monday resigned from the Trinamool Congress in a significant setback to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee just ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Roy resigned from the primary membership of the party as well as a member of the state legislative Assembly.
Amid strong buzz that he may be considering the option to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has emerged as the primary challenger to the TMC in the state, Roy refused to comment on any such possibility. “I am not going to say anything on this,” he said.
The party’s deputy chief whip in the Bengal Assembly, Roy was critical of the state government over its handling of the Sandeshkhali incident. “I am really disappointed with the way the party is functioning. I am fed up with so many allegations of corruption levelled against the party and the government. Secondly, I do not support the way the Sandeshkhali issue was handled,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI today morning.
The Trinamool and the Mamata government have come under fire over allegations of sexual exploitation and land grabbing by party leaders in Sandeshkhali. The Calcutta High Court on Monday reserved its verdict in a suo moto case regarding the allegations against the Trinamool leaders, including Shahjahan Sheikh.