Raiganj's BJP MLA Krishna Kalyani, who joined the Trinamool Congress last year, is likely to be appointed as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the West Bengal assembly, sources said on Monday.

The post fell vacant after senior TMC leader Mukul Roy, who had won the 2021 assembly polls on a BJP ticket and later joined the Mamata Banerjee-led party, submitted his resignation as the chairman of the committee last week, citing ill health.

"Krishna Kalyani will most likely be appointed as the next PAC chairman. An order and notification regarding the same will be out either tomorrow or the day after," a senior assembly official said.

Kalyani, a TMC leader in Uttar Dinajpur district, had joined the BJP before the assembly elections and was fielded from the Raiganj seat. However, he quit the BJP in October last year to return to the TMC. He did not resign as a legislator despite being asked to do so by the saffron party.

Speaker Biman Banerjee had appointed Roy as PAC chairman in July last year, while the opposition BJP had wanted its MLA Ashok Lahiri to head the committee. Banerjee, in May, rejected Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari's plea for disqualifying Roy as MLA, saying he did not find merit in the argument.

Roy, who won the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in Nadia district on a BJP ticket in the state election last year, defected to the ruling TMC in June 2021.?He also did not resign as a legislator.?

On previous occasions between 2016 and 2021, Congress MLAs Manas Bhunia and Sankar Singh, who, like Roy had joined the TMC without resigning as legislators, were appointed as the chairman of PAC.

(With PTI inputs)