TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi announced his resignation from the Rajya Sabha on Friday, saying he feels suffocated in the House as he is unable to do anything for the violence going on in his state, Bengal.
"If you sit here quietly and cannot do anything, then it is better that you resign from here and go to the land of Bengal and be with people," he said in the Upper House of Parliament.
Trivedi said the world looks at India when something happens.
"What I mean to say is the way violence is taking place in our state. Sitting here, I am feeling perplexed as to what should I do," he added.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP said he is unable to bear various incidents that are happening in Bengal.
"I am grateful to my party that it has sent me here, but now I feel a little suffocated. We are unable to do anything and there is an atrocity (going on). My voice of conscience is saying what Swami Vivekananda used to say -- arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached," Trivedi said while announcing his resignation from the House.
Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh said there is a due process for resigning from the House and asked Trivedi to submit his resignation in writing to the chairman.
Trivedi’s announcement stunned his party, the TMC, but the signs were visible, said sources close to him, ndtv.com reported.
On Thursday, he had tweeted, praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in Parliament at a time when his party boss Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been attacking the policies of the BJP and its leadership relentlessly.
To Modi's shout-out to the private sector in India's progress and global standing, Trivedi tweeted: "I am personally in agreement with this. The way forward is to let our young talented mind innovate, create and distribute wealth. Pay Govt levies, create jobs. For that, our Govt officers (babus) too, need to encourage the youth." His Twitter account briefly vanished after his resignation.
Reacting to Trivedi’s announcement on Friday, Trinamool Congress leader Saugata Roy said he was saddened. "This is unfortunate. I am saddened. It is not good that he has resigned. I knew he was dissatisfied but I did not know he would quit," he said.
Trivedi was nominated to the Rajya Sabha last year by the TMC. He was a Lok Sabha MP from Barrackpore but had lost the 2019 parliamentary election and had felt sidelined in the party since. He was defeated by Arjun Singh, a former Trinamool leader who had joined the BJP.
Another MP, Sukhendu Roy, questioned why Trivedi was allowed to speak out of turn in the Rajya Sabha, and said on his resignation: "Trinamool means grassroots. This will give us an opportunity to send a grassroots worker of ours soon to the Rajya Sabha."
Moments after the news emerged, senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya told reporters: "Dinesh Trivedi is more than welcome to join BJP. He has taken a year to quit the Trinamool".
The BJP leader said he had met Trivedi a year ago and he had told him "things were not good".
TMC has lost several leaders to the BJP in the run up to the Bengal elections due in April-May. The trickle turned into a flood when in December 2020, Mamata Banerjee lost her top aide Suvendu Adhikari, who first quit as minister after an extended period of uncertainty, and then immediately joined the BJP. Over 40 more leaders and workers followed him out of the Trinamool.
