Introduction
Mukul Roy (Bengali: মুকুল রায়; born 17 April 1954) was the Railway Minister of India. He is an Indian politician and a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, representing West Bengal. He also serves as the National Vice-President of his party, the All India Trinamool Congress. After Mamata Banerjee resigned as the Railway Minister she was to become the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Roy was handed additional charge of the Railway Ministry after Mamata didi expressed her desire that her party retain the Railway Ministry and personally recommended Mr. Roy to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He served as a Minister of State in the Railway Ministry with Manmohan Singh serving as the Cabinet Minister (pro tem) till 11 July 2011. Mukul Roy's Railway ministry will run a special train called "DU Gyan Uday Express" a Bengali worded statement, which will take 1000 students of Delhi University to places like Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Goa and Bangalore during the summer break of 2012.
Educational qualifications
He did his BSc (Part I) from Calcutta University. He also earned an MA degree in public administration from the Madurai Kamaraj University in 2006.
Political controversies
On 11 July 2011, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh directed Mukul Roy to visit the site of derailment of the Guwahati-Puri Express in Assam he openly defied him. This brought a lot of displeasure among the political circles and he was shunted out of the Railways portfolio in the latest cabinet reshuffle on 12 July 2011.
In 2012, he was the subject of a controversy regarding the Railway Budget. This happened after Mamata Banerjee expressed her discontent with the increase in passenger fares, and demanded the resignation of Dinesh Trivedi, Railway Minister.
After Dinesh resigned, Mukul became the Railway Minister of India and he removed the fare hike introduced by the former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi, to much criticism. With the exit of Trinamool from UPA coalition due to allowance of 51% FDI in retail and aviation sector, Mukul Roy's tenure of railway minister came to an end in the month of September 2012.