Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray on Wednesday took to social media once again with a message that might cause discomfort to the ruling party in Bengal as he lent support for the Reclaim the Night movement.

“Reclaim the night - Reclaim peoples’ fundamental right to live with human dignity as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the Rajya Sabha member wrote on X with a rose emoji.

Article 21 declares that no citizen can be denied his life and liberty except by due process of law. The post from the Jago Bangla (Trinamool’s daily mouthpiece in Bengali) editor was made ahead of a second Reclaim the Night protest planned on Wednesday.

The protest is widely perceived to be a move against the Mamata Banerjee
dispensation.

In the evening, Ray made a public appearance, throwing his weight behind the Reclaim the Night movement, and shedding tears during an interaction with journalists regarding the brutality of the RG Kar tragedy.

Since standing down from the steadily escalating confrontation with his party on August 20, then too over a post on X, the 75-year-old three-term Upper House member had been keeping to himself and making vague — albeit suggestive — posts on social media on days of extra discomfort for the ruling dispensation in the RG Kar fallout.

But Wednesday’s post was the most direct since his (now-removed) sensational August 18 post demanding custodial interrogation of Kolkata Police commissioner Vineet Goyal — along with former RG Kar Medical College and Hospital principal Sandip Ghosh — by the CBI. For that post, the police summoned Ray and he had to move Calcutta High Court. Eventually, the MP deleted the post, as a part of it was factually incorrect.

Trinamool insiders said Mamata was “very annoyed” with Ray, but her nephew Abhishek Banerjee “doesn’t seem to mind”.