Mukul Roy, an Indian politician known for shaping election strategy in West Bengal and for helping found the Trinamool Congress, died on February 23, 2026. He was 71. He died at Apollo Hospital in Salt Lake, Kolkata, around 1:30 am, and the cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Roy was among the organisational architects of the Trinamool Congress after its formation in 1998, building a party structure that became central to its statewide campaigns. In national politics he served as a Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal from 2006 to 2017 and held ministerial roles in the UPA era, including serving as Union Minister of Railways in 2012.
His later career reflected the volatility of Bengal politics. Roy left the TMC to join the BJP in 2017. He won the Krishnanagar Uttar seat in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election on a BJP ticket, then returned to the TMC after the polls.
In recent years he faced serious health problems, including Parkinson’s disease, and his family said he had undergone three surgeries and was in a coma for several days before his death.