Electoral statistics at his fingertips, knowledge of the ins and outs in all of West Bengal’s 294 Assembly constituencies in an instant, and the ability to recall obscure details at will. These abilities are what set apart Mukul Roy apart from other political leaders and helped him turn the Trinamool Congress (TMC) into a dominant political force in West Bengal as the Left crumbled.
Once Mamata Banerjee’s second-in-command, Roy left her side to join the BJP under the shadow of corruption allegations before making a return to the TMC after the 2021 Assembly elections, passed away at the age of 71 in Kolkata in the early hours of Monday. Considered a strategist par excellence who left his mark on Bengal politics with his tenure in the TMC as well as the BJP, which he helped gain a toehold in the state, in his later years, Roy was let down by the very thing that had helped him climb to the top: his sharp, calculating mind. Ironically, the man about whom it was once said that he knew what was happening in every corner of the state struggled to remember names towards the end.
Born in 1954, Roy was from Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas district and, according to one of his neighbours who did not wish to be named, started his political career with the CPI(M)’s student wing SFI in his college days at the Rishi Bankim Chandra College in Naihati. “He later joined the Youth Congress. He was part of a group which participated in railway scrap auctions, too. His group organised a big Durga Puja in his locality and annual musical programmes.”
Roy’s first mentor in politics was Mrinal Singha Roy, who introduced him to Congress leader Somen Mitra. However, he later joined forces with Mamata Banerjee who was the state Youth Congress president at the time. “Mamata Banerjee trusted him the most, much more than the leaders of South Kolkata,” said the neighbour. “In those times, he had nowhere to stay in Kolkata; he used to travel early by train to Kolkata. Every night, he used to take the 10.50 pm Ranaghat local to return home. This was his routine for years. I used to return with him every day. He was good at drafting letters and had a sharp memory.”
When Mamata broke away from the Congress and floated the TMC on January 1, 1998, Roy was by her side, one of the founding members of the party that would soon emerge as the main challenger of the Left behemoth that had been running the state for over two decades at the time. Roy, with a penchant for remembering names and faces, helped build the TMC organisation booth by booth, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. “He knew everybody by name,” said a friend. Despite not being a mass leader, Roy wielded massive influence and was the second power centre in the party after Mamata because of his organisational hold.
In an emotional post on X, CM Banerjee said she was “deeply shocked and grieved” at the sudden demise of her “long-time political colleague and co-fighter in many struggles”.
“He was my long-time political colleague and a comrade-in-arms in many political struggles. The news of his departure has left me heartbroken. The late Mukul Roy devoted his life to the party from the very inception of the Trinamool Congress. He served as a Union Minister and enjoyed acceptability across all levels of the party. Later, he took a different path, only to return again. His contributions to Bengal’s politics and his organisational acumen are unforgettable. Regardless of party affiliations, the political circles will feel his absence,” she wrote.
TMC’s Delhi face and exit
In the 2000s, Roy became the party’s face in Delhi. He was appointed the party general secretary and in 2006 was sent to the Rajya Sabha, where he served as the party’s leader from 2009 to 2012. In 2011, with Banerjee at the cusp of ending 34 years of Left rule, Roy played an instrumental role in stitching up the TMC’s alliance with the Congress that proved decisive.
Roy replaced Dinesh Trivedi as the Railways Minister in March 2012. However, his stint was brief as the TMC exited the UPA-II alliance in protest against the Centre’s approval to 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail and aviation sectors.
Roy’s ties with the party he built from the ground up hit turbulence in 2015, shortly after his name cropped up in the Saradha chit fund case and the Narada sting operation (cash for favours case). Questioned for five hours by the CBI, Roy addressed the media six times in a span of two hours as he felt the heat. However, it marked the start of his sidelining in the party and, eventually, in September 2017, the party suspended him for six years. By then, he had opened up a communication channel with the BJP’s poll in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya and that November, he moved to the BJP.
BJP stint and return to TMC
In the BJP, Roy employed the same tactics that had helped him in the TMC. He concentrated on strengthening the party’s grassroots presence and identified unhappy TMC leaders who then joined the BJP. Among those who switched sides were Sabyasachi Dutta, Sunil Singh, Biswajit Das, Wilson Champramary, and Mihir Goswami.
Roy also played a crucial role as the BJP registered its best-ever performance in a Lok Sabha election in Bengal in 2019, winning 18 of the state’s 42 parliamentary seats. This set off shockwaves in Bengal politics as the BJP coming to power in the state appeared to be a distinct possibility. Ahead of the 2021 elections, Roy continued to provide feedback to the BJP on bringing over disgruntled TMC leaders. Suvendu Adhikari, the current Leader of Opposition, Rajib Banerjee, and Jitendra Tiwari jumped ship at this time. One of the last TMC MLAs to switch sides was four-time legislator Sonali Guha, a close Mamata aide, who publicly said she had joined the BJP on the request of “Mukul da”.
However, all this was not enough as the TMC roared back to power, riding on a pro-Mamata wave. Though Roy won the Krishnanagar Uttar seat, his first successful electoral contest, differences with the BJP grew rapidly and unhappy about not being given a national role, Roy returned to the TMC a month after the Bengal poll results.
However, by then, he was not his former self because of health problems and he slowly withdrew from public life. On November 13, 2025, the Calcutta High Court disqualified Roy as MLA under the anti-defection law.
