Kolkata: Babul Supriyo, who recently announced his retirement from politics, on Monday clarified that he will continue to be a Member of Parliament.
The Asansol MP has taken the decision after meeting Bharatiya Janata Party's National President JP Nadda.
After the meeting, Babul Supriyo said that he will only perform constitutional duty towards Asansol, but will not take part in politics.
"I will continue to work constitutionally (as MP) in Asansol, WB. There is politics beyond constitutional post and I withdraw myself from it. I will not join any other party. I will vacate the MP bungalow in Delhi and release security personnel from their duties soon, Babul Supriyo said as quoted by news agency ANI.
Former Union MoS Babul Supriyo had announced his decision to quit politics in a long Facebook post on Saturday. While his Facebook Post first cited that he was not joining any other political party and asserted that he has always been a one-team player, he later deleted this part giving rise to speculations.
In an emotional Facebook post written in Bengali, Supriyo had earlier written, "I have heard everything that everybody said — father, (mother), wife, daughter, one or two close friends .. after hearing, understanding and thinking about everything, I am saying that I am not going to any other political party — TMC, Congress, CPI(M). Nowhere, I can confirm, nobody has called me also. I am a one Team player! Have always supported one team Mohun Bagan. Have done only party BJP West Bengal. That’s it!!”
However, after few hours he deleted the part saying he won't be joining any other party.
Babul Supriyo had admitted in his post that the loss of his position as Union Minister of State in the reshuffle earlier this month is "certainly, partially" responsible for his decision. Earlier, Babul Supriyo had tweeted that "he was asked to resign" and later removed the tweet.
The singer-politician was dropped from his post as the Minister of State for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change earlier this month during a major reshuffle in PM Modi's cabinet which has inducted many new faces.
In the recently held West Bengal assembly election, he had lost the Tollygunge constituency by over 50,000 votes to Trinamool Congress’ then PWD minister Arup Biswas.