AMN NEW DELHI
In a major blow to the Trinamool Congress (TMC), veteran leader and founding member Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resigned from both the Rajya Sabha and the party’s primary membership on Monday. The 77-year-old, long considered one of the TMC’s most prominent voices in Parliament, appears positioned to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Ray stated that his departure became inevitable after he publicly demanded an internal inquiry into the conduct of police officers during the investigation of the 2024 RG Kar Medical College rape-murder case. He alleged that certain officers played a major role in the destruction of evidence and that his calls for accountability led to his immediate isolation within the party hierarchy.
“That was the turning point,” Ray told reporters in New Delhi, adding that he had been systematically “frozen out” by the leadership for refusing to participate in efforts to shield those responsible. His high-profile exit marks the culmination of months of widening rifts between the veteran lawmaker and the Mamata Banerjee-led party over its handling of the trainee doctor’s tragic death, an issue that previously sparked widespread, weeks-long protests across West Bengal.