Veteran Indian Politician Mukul Roy died early on Monday, 23 February 2026. He was once considered the No. 2 in the Trinamool Congress (TMC). He was suffering from a cardiac arrest at Apollo Hospital in Salt Lake, Kolkata. He was 71 years old, and his son Subhranshu Roy confirmed the news, stating that Roy breathed his last around 1:30 am.
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Roy’s death marks the end of a long political career defined by particular strategic influence and dramatic shifts across parties. In addition, he was a founding manager of the All India Trinamool Congress and was widely recognised as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s closest aide in the party’s formative years, aiding in building TMC from scratch and consolidating its organisational strength across Bengal. He was also labelled as the ” Chanakya of Bengal Politics”.
Before briefly taking over as the 32nd Union Railway minister in 2012, he served in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as minister of state for shipping. Moreover, his tenure came at a politically sensitive time and was marked by efforts to manage party and bureaucratic interests.
In 2017, because of internal differences, Roy left TMC and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), where he enhanced the party’s organisational footprint in West Bengal and played a critical strategic role in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He won a seat in the 2021 assembly elections on a BJP ticket from Krishnanagar Uttar before returning to the TMC later that year.
Political leaders across the spectrum have expressed condolences, marking Roy’s long services and effect on West Bengal’s rising political order. His death closes a significant chapter in the state’s modern political history.