Abhijit Mukherjee, former Congress lawmaker and son of ex-president and Congress heavyweight Pranab Mukherjee, joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday. This came after days of speculation that Abhijit Mukherjee was making a shift to join West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led party.

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After joining the party, he said that the way Banerjee “halted the recent communal wave by BJP, I believe that in the future, with the support of others, she would be able to do the same in the entire country.”

Abhijit was elected from the Jangipur seat in the 2012 by-election after his father Pranab Mukherjee vacated the seat to become President. Abhijit was re-elected from here in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He, however, lost from the seat in 2019 to the TMC candidate Khalilur Rahaman. 

As per the media reports, Abhijit was in talks with the TMC leaders for the past few weeks and had met Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek last month in Kolkata.

Fuelling further speculation, he recently appeared to voice support for the West Bengal CM in the row over a fake vaccination camp in Kolkata.

In a tweet last month, he wrote, “If Didi @MamataOfficial is to be blamed personally for a fake vaccination camp by an impersonating IAS Officer #DebanjanDeb , then surely ModiJi is to blamed for all the scams by Nirav Modi ,Vijay Mallya , Mehul Choksi etc. So no point blaming the Govt of WB for an individual act.”

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Meanwhile, his sister, Sharmishtha Mukherjee continues to be a part of the Congress.