Former Congress Lok Sabha member from Bengal and son of late President Pranab Mukerjee, Abhijit Mukherjee has joined Trinamool Congress (TMC) at the party’s headquarters in Kolkata on Monday at 4 pm.
Thanking CM Banerjee, the 61-year-old politician said: “Mamata Banerjee stopped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bengal. I feel that under her leadership, it may become possible in India as well. I am joining the TMC as a primary member. Had I done so earlier, people would have thought that I have an eye on some prime position. They cannot say so now. Let the TMC utilise my services in whatever way it wants. I am still active."
TMC party's leader in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandopadhyay and minister Partha Chatterjee greeted Abhijit Mukherjee and welcomed him into the party. Martha Chatterjee said that Mukherjee had approached CM through her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
“I have joined AITC and received the party’s primary AITC membership. I would like to thank Mamata Didi and Abhishek Banerjee,” he said, thanking Mamata for the opportunity.
"I don't hanker for any post. I have joined AITC to serve people as a grassroots worker and it is up to the party to decide how to use me. I did not hold any post in Congress and did not even join AITC before the polls. For me, it is like shifting from one Congress to the other," Abhijit Mukherjee said.
His departure from Congress is a setback to the party, however, Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had not given any comment on his leaving the party.
He said, “It is not a question about the Congress getting strong or weak. He is the son of the great Pranab Mukherjee. He must have thought that joining another party is the right thing to do. I don’t want to comment on his decision."
Me Mukherjee further added that he had left his job in 2011 to join politics and was never influenced by his father Pranab Mukherjee to join politics. The decision was left to him, he said. " I am not holding any post in Congress. I don’t even know whether my membership in the party has been renewed," he adds.
Before entering politics, Mukherjee had worked as a corporate executive in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Maruti Udyog Limited and the Steel Authority of India.
In 2011, he was elected as an MLA from Nalhati Birbhum district, TMC came to power by ending the Left Front’s 34-year-long regime.
TMC had contested elections as allies with Congress, then.
“My victory from Nalhati became possible entirely because of the anti-Left storm Mamata Banerjee raised in 2011. I had no role to play in that,” Mukherjee said.
Later, he won the Jangipur Lok Sabha seat in Murshidabad district in the 2012 by-poll when his father had left the seat and again won the seat in 2014. However, in 2019, he lost the seat to TMC’s Khalilur Rahaman.
Also Read: Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukharjee fuels suspicion over joining TMC
He also thanked the leaders of TMC in Murshidabad for motivating him to join the party ruling Bengal.