Refusing to read much into his sacking as the party's national general secretary, sidelined Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy Saturday took a veiled dig at party supremo Mamata Banerjee, saying she was not even a party member when he initiated the process for the Trinamool's formation."I am still a member of parliament elected on a Trinamool Congress ticket. They can desire anything, you can desire anything but what will happen, only future can tell," Roy said in Delhi, shortly after the Trinamool sacked him as its general secretary."On Dec 17, 1997, when I had made the application for the formation of the party under the Representation of the People Act, then the current chairperson (Banerjee) was not even a member of the party," Roy said.
Digging into the past, Roy said when he started work as the only general secretary, "the party was zero"."And today, the party has 11 Rajya Sabha members and 34 Lok Sabha members, is in power in Bengal. The party has MLAs in Assam, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh..."Standing at this juncture, there has been a reshuffle in the party and I have no doubts about the capability of the new members. So I hope the new office bearers will help the party flourish and progress rapidly and in the coming days will come to power in India," said the former railway minister.On speculation that he was eyeing an entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party, Roy said: "There is a huge difference between possibility and reality. Until and unless possibility turns into reality, nobody can say."
The party's working committee, which met at party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence in Kolkata, appointed Subrata Bakshi as the sole national general secretary.While Roy -- once considered Banerjee's right-hand man -- was continuing in the post since the party's formation in 1998, Bakshi was also made national general secretary last month.Describing Bakshi as a "competent fellow", Roy asserted that his sacking does not signify his isolation."People of Bengal are in touch with me and just by forming a new committee and excluding me, the question of isolation does not arise," said Roy, one of the founding members of the party and considered the architect of its electoral successes.
"The right of forming the party's working committee lies with the chairperson (Banerjee). So exercising her constitutional right, she has formed the working committee in which I have not been inducted."So it's the prerogative of the chairperson and the party, I have nothing to say in this regard," asserted Roy, whose relation with the Trinamool nosedived following his interrogation by the CBI in the multi-crore-rupee Saradha chit fund scam.
While the Trinamool has been going hammer and tongs against the CBI which has arrested and interrogated several of its parliamentarians and ministers, Roy took a divergent stand, professing he was ready to be grilled by the agency as many times as it wanted. Even as he gave guarded responses to a volley of questions from journalists, Roy said only time would say whether the decision taken by the party was right or not.To repeated queries about his removal from all party posts, Roy replied: "It is too early to make a comment. I have said this earlier and reiterate that only time will tell if the decision is correct."