Former Railway Minister Mukul Roy dies of cardiac arrest at 71

Kolkata: Former Railway Minister Mukul Roy, once regarded as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's closest confidant and the principal strategist of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), died of cardiac arrest at a private hospital here early Monday.

He was 71 and is survived by his son, Subhranshu Roy. Roy passed away around 1.30 am at a hospital in Salt Lake, Subhranshu Roy said.

He had been battling multiple ailments and was frequently hospitalised over the past two years. Family members said he had also been diagnosed with dementia and had recently slipped into a coma.

His body will be taken to his residence before the last rites are performed later in the day, they said.

A former Union minister and two-time Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal, Roy's four-decade-long political journey saw his stints in the Congress, TMC and the BJP.

His political career began with the Youth Congress, before he joined hands with Banerjee when she broke away from the grand old party to form the Trinamool Congress in 1998. As a founding member, he quickly emerged as one of the key organisational pillars of the fledgling party and went on to serve as its general secretary.

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2006 and became the party's leader in the Upper House in 2009, turning into TMC's principal troubleshooter in Delhi. In the UPA-2 government, when the TMC was a constituent, Roy first served as Minister of State for Shipping before taking over as the railway minister in 2012.

In West Bengal's political circles, Roy earned a reputation as a backroom operator deft in organisational work. Following the TMC's historic victory in 2011 that ended 34 years of the Left rule, he played a significant role in consolidating the party's hold in several districts, overseeing defections from the CPM and the Congress, strengthening the new regime's political base.

However, his career was not without controversy. His name had surfaced in the Saradha chit fund case and the Narada sting operation.

By 2017, relations between Roy and the TMC leadership had deteriorated. In November that year, he joined the BJP in a move that altered the state's political equations. Tasked with strengthening the BJP's organisation in West Bengal, Roy was credited by party leaders with helping engineer defections from the TMC and expanding the saffron party's base ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which the BJP won 18 of the state's 42 seats.

He was elected as a BJP MLA from the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections. Within months, however, he returned to the TMC, triggering legal and political wrangling. Subsequently, a court disqualified him as an MLA under the anti-defection law for switching parties after being elected on a BJP ticket.

Though he rejoined the TMC, Roy never regained the political centrality he once enjoyed. As his health declined, he gradually withdrew from active politics.

(With inputs from PTI)