Former President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee joins Trinamool Congress

Abhijit Mukherjee, son of former President of India Pranab Mukherjee, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday. Abhijit Mukherjee is a two-term Lok Sabha MP from his father’s seat Jangipur of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district. However, he lost the last election. He joined Trinamool today in presence of senior leaders Partha Chatterjee and Sudip Bandopadhyay.

Abhijit Mukherjee told a news channel earlier today that he had sought a time for a telephonic conversation with Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee to discuss about commemorating his father on his first death anniversary on August 31, and during the discussion they had spoken about his joining the Trinamool Congress. Later, Mukherjee also met Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Abhijit Mukherjee said that he had taken the decision to join Trinamool as it was clear that the people in the state had a clear verdict on the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. He added that the Congress had taken several wrong decisions, especially its alliance with the Left Front. “That was not right,” he said. He added that the people in Bengal had rejected the Congress and the BJP and Mamata Banerjee had shown great leadership in fighting the BJP and that had been accepted by the people of Bengal. He added that the Congress was showing no signs of its sincerity in making itself more acceptable to the people of the state. Mukherjee said he was joining Trinamool as an ordinary party member and hadn’t joined the party out of greed.

On Rahul Gandhi, Mukherjee said that he is a “gentleman” who is trying to do good things to the party. “I won’t say anything more,” Mukherjee said.