July, 2011: Minister of State in Railway, Mukul Roy openly defied Prime Minister’s directive to visit a train accident site in Assam, and instead chose to accompany his party chief, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee to Jangalmahal.
October, 2011: During the inauguration of the AC double-decker train at Howrah, then rail minister Dinesh Trivedi, ended his speech hailing the Indian Railways. But Mukul Roy chose to close his speech with—“Mamata Banerjee Zindabad”.
February, 2012: Roy was 15 minutes late to join Home Minister Chidambaram during the inauguration of the NSG hub. Although, when it comes to party meeting, anyone will vouch for his punctuality.
This is Didi’s most ‘trusted man’ and India’s new Union Railway Minister, Mukul Roy, in snapshots.
Fifty-seven-year-old Roy was a little-known local Congress leader in his home-town Kanchrapara, in North 24 Parganas of West Bengal, in the early 1980s. But his political career took a dramatic turn after 1990, when he got in touch with the then youth Congress leader Mamata Banerjee. During the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, Roy was one of the political agents of Banerjee. For this, however, Roy should be thankful to his friend and now party colleague Partha Chatterjee, who introduced his ‘friend Mukul’ to her.
“We know each other from the 1980s. I was posted in Kalyani and Mukul was a local Congress leader in neighbouring Kanchrapara. I was also a member of the Congress’ students wing when I was a student of Ashutosh College. The common factor was our association with the Congress,” recalls Chatterjee.
However, while Chatterjee was off from political activities until 2000 as he joined Andew Yule as an HR professional, Roy remained with Banerjee all along and soon emerged as her most ‘trusted soldier’. Banerjee made him general secretary of Trinamool Congress since formation of the party in 1998, and then finally Roy entered parliamentary politics in 2006 as a Rajya Sabha MP.
“He has been a loyal party man and an organisational leader of TMC. He has sacrificed a lot for the party,” says Subrata Bakshi, the other close aide of Banerjee.
Indeed, Roy is a party man —he hardly visits his family at Kanchrapara even though it is just a one-hour drive from Kolkata. He always prefers to stay at the TMC headquarters. Even when it comes to watching his favourite East Bengal-Mohun Bagan football match, the die-hard Mohun Bagan fan prefers the company of his party workers at the Topsia Trinamool Bhawan.
Banerjee also never misses a chance to certify his loyalty. She herself accompanied Roy, when he was filing nomination for the Rajya Sabha earlier this week. Banerjee was aware that questions would be raised about Roy, whose educational qualifications are listed as Higher Secondary, B.Sc (Part 1) on the Rajya Sabha website, she chose to close the chapter saying, “Mukul Roy is our candidate for Railway Ministry. He is a loyal soldier of the party....He is very qualified. Qualification does not only mean degrees, but experience and your contribution to human development.”
It is no more a secret that Roy was always Banerjee’s first choice as Railways Minister. He was the minister of state for railways and Banerjee had recommended him for the cabinet post she was vacating. She had to name Trivedi following the Prime Minister’s objection. Hence, according to TMC insiders, Banerjee did not take a chance this time and went all the way to Delhi to ensure Roy’s cabinet berth.
Roy’s loyalty paid off, as he has left behind many of his senior party colleagues to make his way to the Railway Bhavan. With a daunting task of managing railway finances, Roy will have a tough task to strike a balance between his party's populist demands and the need to drastically improve the Railways’ finance, though, the latter does not appear to be an option worth his consideration now.
Although, as minister of state in the shipping ministry, he spent most of his time in Kolkata promoting the party, Roy assures, “Certainly railway, specially safety of the passengers” will be his priority. And when it comes to managing railway finances, Rail minister says he will follow “Mamata Banerjee’s guidelines”.
But his priorities were laid bare on his very first day in office. After assuming his post, Roy requested that the furniture in his office should be arranged the same way as Mamata Banerjee used to have it when she was the Railways Minister. Yesterday, Roy rolled back the passenger fare hike that had been introduced by Dinesh Trivedi. Clearly, his priorities are well set.
