Pranab Mukherjee's Son Abhijit joins Trinamool Congress

Former president Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee has  joined the Trinamool Congress, ending weeks of speculation and denial by him. "The way Mamata 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," said Abhijit Mukherjee, in his first comments after joining the Trinamool. He was welcomed into the party by TMC leader in Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandopadhyay.

A former Congress MP from Jangipur and an MLA from Nalhati, Trinamool may offer Mukherjee the Jangipur assembly seat which is due a bypoll as a candidate there had passed away just before the elections. Abhijit Mukherjee's father Pranab Mukherjee won the Jangipur parliamentary constituency in Bengal's Murshidabad district twice as a Congress MP till he vacated it in 2012 to run for President.

Rumours of Mukherjee's exit gathered pace after Jitin Prasada, Congress's  face in UP, vaulted to the BJP. The Congress, which fought the Bengal elections in partnership with the Left, was decimated. The party got zero seats; the Left too failed to win any seat.