Veteran West Bengal politician and former Union Railway Minister Mukul Roy passed away on Monday in Kolkata. He was 71, news agency ANI reported.
Roy died due to cardiac arrest at Apollo Hospital in Salt Lake, around 1:30 a.m. his son Subhranshu Roy told ANI.
For decades, Roy was West Bengal's most feared and admired backroom operator.
Roy perfected the art - mass parades of councillors, flag-hoisting ceremonies and orchestrated public displays of numerical dominance at party headquarters.
The former railway minister defected to the BJP in 2017 following differences with the leadership of the TMC which he had helped establish in 1998. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections, he emerged as the saffron party's key recruiter, tapping into TMC's internal discontent and bringing several of its MLAs and MPs into the BJP fold.
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By 2022, he resigned as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee citing ill health. Since then, his public appearances dwindled; his frailty deepened and multiple hospitalisations followed.
In 2024, Roy was rushed to a Kolkata-based hospital after he fell in the bathroom of his house and lost consciousness.
In November 2025, the Calcutta High Court disqualified Roy as MLA under the anti-defection law, the very statute he once navigated, bent and weaponised at the height of his influence as one of the most formidable political organisers of West Bengal. Roy's disqualification came long after he withdrew from active politics following his worsening health after the 2021 elections.
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