Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy wrote a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for withdrawal of security cover. The MHA is yet to respond to Roy’s request.

In March, the Centre had upgraded the security cover of Roy from the ‘Y+’ category to ‘Z’ category.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national vice president Mukul Roy and his son Subhranshu Roy joined TMC in Kolkata on Friday in the presence of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, TMC national secretary Abhishek Banerjee at the Trinamool Congress Bhavan in Kolkata.

‘More leaders from the BJP will come back to join TMC in the coming days’

Welcoming Roy and his son into the party, Mamata Banerjee claimed that more leaders from the BJP will come back to join TMC in the coming days.

She, however, clarified that those who criticised the party and betrayed it just before the recent West Bengal assembly election and joined the BJP for money will not be taken back into the party’s fold.

Roy’s return to the TMC evoked mixed reactions in the BJP with state unit president Dilip Ghosh saying that this development will have no impact on his organisation.

BJP MP Saumitra Khan compared Roy to Mir Jafar for his ‘betrayal’.

‘We thought of him as Chanakya but he turned out to be Mir Jafar’

“British East India Company connived with Mir Jafar for defeating Siraj ud-Daulah and making an entry in India. We thought of him as Chanakya but he turned out to be Mir Jafar. His son lost in Assembly election from Bijpur,” Khan said.

This comes just a month after the TMC won a landslide victory in the West Bengal assembly elections.

Bengal’s power corridors were rife with speculations that Roy might rejoin the TMC.

Roy had contested the Assembly election from Krishnangar Uttar constituency on BJP ticket and defeated TMC candidate actor Koushani Mukherjee.

Mukul Roy, a founding member of the TMC, jumped ship in November 2017 to join the BJP.