Kolkata, February 23 Mukul Roy, a key strategist who was once hailed as the "Chanakya of West Bengal politics," died early Monday after a prolonged illness, bringing to an end a career marked by both engineering and participating in defections.
One of the founding members of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), his passing marks the end of one of the most complex political journeys in post-Left West Bengal.
Born in Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas district in 1954, Roy began his political career with the Youth Congress in the 1980s. When Mamata Banerjee broke away from the Congress to form the TMC in 1998, Roy was among the first to join her.
Known for his quiet demeanor and meticulous organizational skills, Roy avoided grand rhetoric. His focus was on arithmetic, booth committees, district-level dynamics, ticket distribution, and alliance management. Within a few years, he emerged as the party's general secretary and principal troubleshooter in Delhi.
Elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2006 and re-elected later, Roy became the TMC's leader in the Upper House in 2009. In the UPA-2 government, he served first as Minister of State for Shipping and later as the railway minister in 2012. However, his true domain was West Bengal.
Following the TMC's historic victory in 2011, which ended the 34-year uninterrupted rule of the Left, Roy oversaw a wave of unprecedented political defections. Opposition-run municipalities and zilla parishads quickly shifted allegiances. Leaders from the Congress and CPI(M), sensing a new political landscape, aligned themselves with the ruling party.
Before this, West Bengal was known for its ideological steadfastness. Cross-party defections were seen as a vice of other states. However, under Roy's leadership, defections became a common practice and even a spectacle. Councillors switched allegiances, MLAs participated in choreographed press conferences, and numerical dominance was openly displayed.
His strategic approach earned him the moniker "Chanakya of West Bengal politics." To some, Roy represented ruthless pragmatism in an era of ideological fluidity. To others, he embodied opportunism. But few could deny his organizational brilliance.
By the 2014 Rajya Sabha elections, Roy's behind-the-scenes maneuvering had become integral to the TMC's expansion. The party's organizational strength reflected his influence.
However, his rise was also overshadowed by controversies. His name surfaced in the Saradha chit fund case and the Narada sting operation, allegations he consistently denied. Simultaneously, power within the TMC became increasingly concentrated around Mamata Banerjee.
As the general secretary of the TMC until 2015, he was effectively the second-in-command in the party. However, following disagreements with the party, he was removed from the post, only to be later appointed as vice president, from which he eventually resigned.
By 2017, relations with his former mentor, Mamata Banerjee, had further deteriorated. Roy eventually left the TMC he had helped found and joined the BJP. The architect of TMC's expansion was now aligned with its principal adversary. This was a defection loaded with symbolic significance.
In the BJP, Roy continued to employ his well-honed strategies. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 assembly polls, he emerged as the saffron party's key organizer in West Bengal. Several TMC leaders followed suit. Party leaders claimed that the BJP's 18 out of 42 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election were partly a result of his recruitment efforts. In 2020, he was appointed the national vice president of the BJP.
"The architect of defections had become the architect of counter-defections," a senior TMC leader once remarked.
Roy was elected as an MLA from Krishnanagar Uttar on a BJP ticket in 2021. However, within weeks of the assembly results, which saw Mamata Banerjee secure a resounding third term, Roy returned to the TMC fold, describing it as his "first and last home".
By then, however, the once-dominant strategist had receded from the political arena.
Roy's health deteriorated significantly after 2021. He resigned as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, citing ill health. Public appearances became infrequent. Multiple hospitalizations followed.
For decades, he had shaped West Bengal's political landscape through late-night meetings and quiet negotiations. Now, he was absent from the arena he had once dominated.
Although he rejoined the TMC, he never regained the centrality he had once commanded. New power centers had emerged.
The Calcutta High Court disqualified him under the anti-defection law. The decision was later stayed by the Supreme Court. In a twist steeped in irony, the law he had long navigated and, critics said, weaponized during his prime, now turned on him.
In the 15th and 16th West Bengal assemblies, defections from the Left and Congress became a defining feature of politics, reflecting a culture Roy had helped institutionalize.
He preferred the shadows to the stage, negotiation to noise, numbers to slogans. He was rarely the face of a movement, but often its architect.
Roy's life mirrors West Bengal's post-2011 political churn -- the erosion of rigid ideological lines, defections, the rise of tactical realignments, and the dominance of survival over sentiment.
With Roy's death, West Bengal's political theatre has lost one of its most skilled backstage directors -- a man who lived in the shadows of power, engineered its shifts, and exited quietly, as he had often operated.
