Kolkata, Feb 12 (IANS): Soon after joining back Congress in Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon, former President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee admitted that joining Trinamool Congress was a "mistake".
Mukherjee is a two-time Congress Lok Sabha member and one-time party legislator from West Bengal.
He also contested as a Congress candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Jangipur constituency in Murshidabad district, which he represented twice.
However, he lost the elections in 2019 by a huge margin, following which he became inactive from politics for quite some time.
However in July 2021, soon after the last West Bengal Assembly elections that year, he joined Trinamool Congress and was then officially accepted in the ruling party by former West Bengal Education Minister and Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, the main accused in the multi-crore cash for school job case in West Bengal.
However, even after joining the Trinamool Congress, Mukherjee was not at the forefront of political activities for quite some time. He was denied nomination by the Trinamool Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Recently, he expressed his desire to return to Congress to the party's national president Mallikarjun Kharge.
On Wednesday afternoon after officially joining Congress at the party's state headquarters in Kolkata, Mukherjee said that coming back to the country's oldest national party was his spontaneous decision.
"Leaving Congress and joining Trinamool Congress was a mistake on my part. I also apologise for that mistake. I am happy that the Congress leadership has given me a second chance. This could not have been possible unless Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi approved it," Mukherjee said.
He also said that Congress is the only alternative against the "divisive" politics in the country. "Henceforth I will perform whatever responsibility is given to me by the party. Without Congress, it is impossible to unite the country. No other political party is capable of that," Mukherjee said.
src/svn