Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi resigns from Rajya Sabha, Bengal Polls 2021, Mamata Banerjee

Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday resigned from Rajya Sabha. Trivedi, considered a close confidant of Mamata Banerjee, had served as the Minister for Railways in the UPA II government.

"If you sit here quietly and cannot do anything, it is better that you resign from here and go to the land of Bengal and be with people," he said in the Upper House.

Trivedi said the world looks at India when something happens. "What I mean to say is the way violence is taking place in our state. Sitting here, I am feeling perplexed as to what should I do," he added.

"It is better to resign than to keep silent. I am feeling suffocated (in the party) and thus resigning from Rajya Sabha," he said. "I am upset over the political violence in West Bengal," he added.

The TMC MP said he is unable to bear various incidents that are happening in West Bengal. "I am grateful to my party that it has sent me here, but now I feel a little suffocated. We are unable to do anything and there is atrocity (going on). My voice of conscience is saying what Swami Vivekananda used to say -- arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached," he said.

Meanwhile, sources told India TV that Trivedi will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) soon.

Trivedi represented Barrackpore constituency in the Lok Sabha between 2009 and 2019. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha for two separate terms -- 1990-1996 and 2002 to 2008. He was elected to the Upper House again in April 2020.

Trivedi lost the Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat in 2019 elections to BJP's Arjun Singh by a margin of 14,857 votes. Singh bagged 4,72,994 votes, while Trivedi secured 4,58,137 votes.

Trivedi's resignation comes just ahead of the Assembly polls in the eastern state. Bengal will go to polls in April-May later this year. The BJP is projecting itself as an alternative to Trinamool Congress which under Mamata Banerjee's leadership is ruling the state since 2011.