Pranab Mukherjee’s son returns to Congress after 4-year stint in TMC
Abhijit Mukherjee said he should not have left the Congress and added that only the Congress works for people from all castes and religions
Kolkata: Abhijit Mukherjee, son of India’s former President Pranab Mukherjee, returned to the Congress on Wednesday, ending a four-year stint with West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which he joined in 2021.
Congress general secretary Ghulam Ahmed Mir, who is in charge of the party’s Bengal unit, gave the former Lok Sabha MP a membership of the Congress at the party headquarters in Kolkata in the presence of state leaders.
“I should not have left the Congress. I apologise. Only the Congress works for people from all castes and religions. This is like my second birth in politics,” Mukherjee said at the brief event.
“The current Indian political scenario is represented by two opposing ideologies. One divides people and tries to change the Constitution. The other stands for secular values enshrined in the Constitution and unites people. Mukherjee’s joining will help the Bengal Congress strengthen its base,” said Mir.
Mukherjee did not hold any important portfolio in TMC and was rarely seen at any party event. He said that he approached the Congress, which currently has no MLA and only one Lok Sabha MP from Bengal, in June last year.
The former President’s son left his corporate job and joined Congress prior to the 2011 Bengal assembly polls in which he won the Nalhati seat in Birbhum district. TMC ended the 34-year-long Left Front rule in that election and formed government with Congress but their alliance did not last long.
Mukherjee won the bye-election to the Jangipur Lok Sabha seat in Murshidabad district in 2012 after his father, who represented the seat twice in a row for Congress, was elected President of India.
Mukherjee won the seat again in 2014 but was defeated in 2019 by TMC. He joined TMC in 2021 but stayed away from active politics.
No TMC leader commented on Mukherjee’s return to the Congress.