Mukul Roy, the backroom strategist once hailed as the 'Chanakya of West Bengal politics', died early on Monday after prolonged illness, ending a career which saw him both engineer and embody defections. One of the founding members of the TMC, his passing ends one of the most layered political journeys of post-Left West Bengal. Roy, who was born in Kanchrapara in North 24 Parganas district in 1954, began his political career with the Youth Congress in the 1980s. When Mamata Banerjee broke away from the Congress to form the Trinamool Congress in 1998, Roy was among the earliest to follow. Soft-spoken and meticulous organiser, he avoided rhetorical flourish. His domain was arithmetic, booth committees, district equations, ticket distribution and alliance management. Within a few years, he emerged as the party's general secretary and principal troubleshooter in Delhi. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2006 and re-elected later, Roy became the TMC's leader in the Upper House in 2009. In the