Sikha Mitra, a two-term Trinamul MLA in the past, on Sunday joined the party, claiming she never left, although she resigned as the Chowringhee MLA in 2014 amid allegedly testy ties with Mamata Banerjee.

She is the wife of deceased Bengal Congress stalwart Somen Mitra, who returned to the Congress after quitting as Trinamul’s Diamond Harbour MP around the same time as her.

“My husband became the state president of the Congress, but I was on a hiatus from active politics. I was profoundly touched by the warmth and simplicity of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She personally called me and asked me to be an active worker of Trinamul. I decided that if I rejoin active politics, it must be under her leadership,” she said.

“I had never quit the party (Trinamul). I had resigned as MLA,” she said at a news meet after her joining at Trinamul Bhavan.

This summer, she was fielded as the BJP’s Chowringhee MLA candidate, after BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari met her. She later said she had not been asked before the announcement, that Sonia Gandhi had called her up and she could not quit the Congress.

An embarrassed BJP changed the Chowringhee candidate.

Congress’s state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: “She was with Trinamul in the past. She had joined the Congress. Now, she has returned to the ruling party. It is her decision, her choice… we have always accorded her respect.”

Shikha Mitra said sometimes differences emerge, referring to the 2014 falling-out with Mamata, but they now stood resolved.

“Mamata Banerjee had called me up after my husband’s demise (on July 30 last year), and we have always shared cordial ties,” she claimed on Sunday, despite having developed a reputation for being one of the chief minister’s most unsparing critics.

Her son Rohan stepped down as a state general-secretary of the Congress last month, attributing it to his differences with Chowdhury.