Abhijit Mukherjee, the son of former President Pranab Mukherjee, joined the Trinamool Congress on Monday. He was inducted into the party at a press conference in Kolkata, attended by Trinamool leaders Partha Chatterjee and Sudip Bandyopadhyay.

“I have come from one Congress to another,” Mukherjee said at the press briefing. “The way Mamata [Banerjee] didi resisted the communal Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal [elections], gives me hope that she will be able to replicate that in future at the national level too.”

Mukherjee pointed out that he did not hold any position in his former party, the Congress, and added that he was joining the Trinamool Congress to “safeguard the country’s secularism and integrity”.

Mukherjee, a former central government employee, was elected to the West Bengal Assembly in 2011, after winning the Nalhati constituency on a Congress ticket.

In 2012, after his father vacated the Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency to contest for the president’s post, Mukherjee fought and won the seat. He was again elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from Jangipur. However, in 2019, he lost out to Trinamool Congress candidate Khalilur Rahaman.

Speculations of Mukherjee joining the Trinamool Congress have been making the rounds for some time now. Over the last few weeks, Mukherjee tweeted about schemes introduced by the Mamata Banerjee government and backed the West Bengal chief minister in relation to an alleged fake Covid-19 vaccination scheme in the state.

Abhijit Mukherjee’s sister, Sharmishtha Mukherjee, continues to remain a Congress leader based in Delhi.