“In TMC, it is only the party supremo Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee who speak. Nobody else is consulted or allowed to speak. It’s just one-way traffic. The party supremo has refused to accept the mandate of the people of West Bengal,” Ray told ThePrint.
The advocate added that he has not yet decided what he will do next. “I have been in politics for close to 60 years now. I will take a call at the appropriate time.”
In a press note issued soon after submitting his resignation to Rajya Sabha chairperson CP Radhakrishnan, Ray praised the BJP government in West Bengal. He said that the BJP has started working for overall development and reconstruction of West Bengal in line with what it had promised in its election manifesto.
Ray is the first Rajya Sabha TMC MP to resign from the party amid murmurs that more MPs may resign in the aftermath of the party’s humiliating defeat last month in Bengal. While there are 12 Rajya Sabha MPs from Trinamool Congress, the party’s strength is 28 in the Lok Sabha.
About 20 Trinamool Lok Sabha MPs had a meeting with Union Minister Bhupender Yadav in the morning on Monday, where West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari was also present. Ray was also present in the meeting.
Asked if other TMC MPs will also resign, Ray said, “The possibility cannot be ruled out.”
The TMC has been hit by rebellion since the party’s electoral rout. About two dozen of the party’s 80 MLAs have rebelled and backed Ritabrata Banerjee as Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal assembly. Mamata had chosen Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of the Opposition.
Before Ray, TMC Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar quit from the primary post of the party. But she has not quit the party, yet.
The TMC leadership, Ray said, has refused to accept the mandate of the people of West Bengal. “The people of the state had voted against TMC and its corruption. Corruption in the party has crossed all limits. Instead of looking within and going for course correction, the party leader is crying wolf.”
He said that soon after the election results came out, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had called a meeting of all MPs and MLAs. “I thought there would be a postmortem of what all went wrong. But in the meeting all that Mamata Banerjee talked about was how BJP had forcibly defeated the TMC… there was no soul searching as to what led to such a devastating rout,” he said.
“In that meeting also, no one was allowed to speak. We were told in the end that if any MPs had any suggestions, they could write. What was the point of calling all of us to the meeting then?”
Ever since the RG Kar episode happened in August 2024, Ray said, he has been thinking about resigning.
“I did not decide to quit in a huff. I have been thinking about it since the RG Kar incident. The rot in the party has crossed all limits,” the former TMC MP said.
Ray said that he was the first TMC MP to openly voice his protest against the RG Kar incident. “Without holding any party banner, or uttering anybody’s name, I sat in protest against what had happened. In return, I was marginalized in the party.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)