Mukul Roy meets Arun Jaitley, may join BJP soon: Sources

NEW DELHI: Suspended Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy, who is in the national capital to submit his resignation from his Rajya Sabha seat, on Sunday met finance minister Arun Jaitley. According to sources, he may soon join BJP. He has sparked rumours of joining the BJP after coming out with statements that seem to indicate a softening of stand towards the saffron party. "I have candidates for every single seat for the first tier of panchyat polls. But I will chalk out my future course of action after I resign from Rajya Sabha," Roy had said on Saturday. Once the second-in-command in the TMC after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Roy was suspended for six years for "anti-party activities" after he said on September 25 that he would resign from the party after Durga Puja. Roy has been maintaining distance from the party leadership for the last few months and was removed as the TMC vice-president after the party decided to revamp its structure. He was earlier removed as the party's in-charge of Tripura where the TMC was steadily making inroads till its members switched over to the BJP earlier in 2017. He earlier said, "I do not consider the BJP to be a communal force. It is a secular party. Had it been a communal party, it would not have been recognised by the Election Commission. When the TMC was formed, it had forged an alliance with the BJP. The alliance was there from 1998-2006, except for a few months during the (West Bengal) Assembly election in 2001." Roy had also said the TMC would not have tasted success, had it not got the BJP's backing in its initial years. Roy was said to be the "mastermind" behind the Nationalist Trinamool Congress Party, a political outfit which registered itself with the Election Commission in 2015. (With PTI inputs)