Mamata Banerjee braces for days with no Mukul Roy by her side

KOLKATA: Silent preparations are on within Trinamool Congress to run the organisation without Mukul Roy. According to some party insiders, Mamata Banerjee herself has decided to look after the outfit alongside running the government.There's a whiff of rebellion as well.

In fact, seniors in Trinamool are busy identifying Mukul loyalists to pre-empt any such development that might break out if Mamata trims Roy's responsibilities. It was Roy who used to run the party as its general secretary to let Mamata concentrate on government affairs.

Trinamool insiders made it clear that Mamata wanted her trusted leaders to prepare a data base of grassroots workers across the state. She also wanted her senior leaders to collect mobile numbers of all key party functionaries across the state so that she herself could contact them personally in case of any emergency. "The work is on as per the party chief 's wish," a Trinamool leader said on Wednesday.

The decades-old bond between Mamata and Mukul came under stress after the CBI interrogated Roy on January 30 in connection with the Saradha scam and let him go. Madan Mitra, Mamata's another trusted aide and cabinet colleague, on the contrary, was taken into custody on the very first day he was quizzed by the central agency.

Mamata-Mukul relationship soured further after Roy reiterated that he would co-operate with the CBI in the investigation. This had grossly violated the party line, which said that the BJP was using the CBI to finish off Mamata Banerjee politically. In a closed-door meeting last week, Mamata also hinted that Roy had dropped her nephew Abhisekh's name in the interrogation.

Both Mamata and Roy are, however, putting up a face to convey to the public that there was no discord."Although in the operational level, she has started the process to clip his wings," a source said.



Srinjoy gets bail

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Srinjoy Bose was granted a conditional bail by a city court on Wednesday. Bose was arrested by the CBI in November for his alleged involvement in the Saradha chit fund scam.

But the probe agency could not file a chargesheet against Bose within 60 days of his arrest and the court on Wednesday granted him bail. It has, however, asked him to appear before the local police station regularly and surrender his passport and other documents to the police.

In a related development, Trinamool has decided to meet the vicepresident and chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Hamid Ansari, on Friday to complain against the BJP, claiming that the party was hatching conspiracies against Trinamool Upper House MPs and forcing them to join the saffron brigade as the BJP did not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha and needs Trinamool help to get any Bill passed.