West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to strip Mukul Roy of key posts
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of Bengal, is set to downgrade her once-powerful aide Mukul Roy further by stripping him of his parliamentary posts.
Mr Roy is leader of the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha and the chairman of its parliamentary party. He may lose both posts in a meeting tomorrow, sources said a day after he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, rattling a party that is worried about losing people to the BJP.
Sources say Mamata Banerjee has written to the Rajya Sabha informing that Derek O'Brien will replace Mr Roy as the party's leader in the upper house.
In recent weeks, the Chief Minister has demonstrated that she no longer favours the man she once trusted implicitly. Mr Roy's position as party general secretary was diluted and a powerful "national secretariat" was set up to handle parliamentary matters.
Mukul Roy's ties with the Trinamool chief nose-dived after he was questioned in connection with the Saradha Ponzi scam in which several party leaders are being investigated.
After his questioning, Mr Roy said he would cooperate fully with the CBI, contradicting Ms Banerjee's stand that the investigation is political vendetta by the centre's ruling BJP.
Yesterday, Mr Roy went against the party line once again by praising the BJP-led government's railway budget.
Among the many reasons for the rift between Ms Banerjee and her former right hand man is the growing clout of the Chief Minister's nephew and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee who was made president of the Trinamool Youth Congress some months ago. Mr Roy's son Subranshu, who is also a Trinamool lawmaker, has not seen any such promotion.
Mamata Banerjee is seen to be struggling to keep her party together amid signs that some leaders are warming up to the BJP ahead of next year's assembly elections in the state.
She recently elevated party MP and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi as national vice president days after he shared a stage in Gujarat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's brother and praised the PM.