The Revolutionary Socialist Party has finally put the brakes on Abani Roy’s penchant for indulging in corporate issues. Embarrassed by the Rajya Sabha MP’s habit of writing letters to the Prime Minister and senior ministers on corporate matters, the party has given a stern “warning” to him and imposed curbs on his activities.

It is learnt that the RSP has virtually prescribed a code of conduct for Roy, a second-time MP. He has been asked to stop writing letters on corporate issues and consult the general secretary or any other central secretariat member before asking questions or making interventions on corporate matters in Parliament.

Sources said the party leadership decided to let off Roy without any disciplinary action after he accepted that it was “wrong” on his part to dabble in “purely” corporate issues in reply to an explanation sought by the party from him for writing a letter to the PM asking him to stop the merger between Bharti Airtel and South African telecom firm MTN. The letter was written in the last week of June when the talks for the merger were on between the two telecom majors.

Roy’s letter to the Prime Minister opposing the merger — on an argument that it would compromise national security — with a plea to stop all “government functionaries” from using Airtel mobile services had annoyed the RSP leadership, which felt it was not the party’s business to poke into business deals and promptly sought an explanation from him.

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