India, June 8 -- Veteran Trinamool Congress leader Sukhendu Sekhar Ray resigned from the Rajya Sabha and from the party's primary membership on Monday - and looked set to enter the BJP - saying his break with the TMC had effectively been sealed the day he demanded an internal inquiry into the role of police officersv in the RG Kar hospital rape-murder case. That's when he found himself frozen out for it, he said.

He said he had been "increasingly isolated" within the party since speaking publicly on the case. "My only fault was that I demanded an internal inquiry against certain police officers because I believed they had a major role in destruction of evidence," Ray told reporters in New Delhi.

"That was the turning point. I realised I...