Bengal: The saffron camp in Bengal suffered another setback after BJP MLA from Alipurduar Suman Kanjilal joined Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) party on Sunday. Trinamool All India General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee invited him to join the party at its Camac Street office. With this, now the sixth BJP MLA has switched sides and joined TMC in Bengal.
BJP came down to 69
Let us tell you that in the last assembly elections, BJP had won 77 out of 294 seats. Two MPs of the party contested the assembly elections and in 2021 also won the post of MLA. However, he later resigned from the post of MLA and Trinamool won the by-election. Elections to these two seats At present, the BJP has a record 75 MLAs in the Assembly, but the number has actually come down to 69 after 6 BJP MLAs defected and switched parties. TMC wrote on its official Facebook page, “Rejecting BJP’s anti-people policies and hate-filled agenda, Alipurduar MLA Mr. Suman Kanjilal today joined the AITC family in the presence of our National General Secretary Mr. Abhishek Banerjee.” Yet another BJP MLA from West Bengal has realized the fact that BJP has no intention of serving the people!’
success in alipurduar
Despite winning the entire state in 2021, the Trinamool failed to win a single seat in Alipuduar district. BJP had won all the five seats in that district. This time the ruling party was successful in breaking the saffron camp in that district as well.
Suman, a journalist by profession, entered politics in 2020. The BJP had first announced the name of economist Ashok Lahiri for the Alipurduar seat. Suman was later nominated for that seat and Ashok was moved to Balurghat. A source in the BJP parliamentary party said that Suman has been in Kolkata for the last three days. He switched parties with the intervention of another MLA, who left the BJP and joined the Trinamool. BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya, however, claimed that the BJP would not lose its relevance in state politics due to the MLA’s defection.
After the 2021 assembly elections, Krishnanagar North BJP MLA and BJP Central Committee Vice President Mukul Roy joined the Trinamool. After that Kaliaganj MLA Soumen Rai, Raiganj MLA Krishna Kalyani, Bagdah MLA Vishwajit Das and Bishnupur MLA Tanmay Ghosh joined Trinamool. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has appealed to Speaker Biman Banerjee to disqualify him as an MLA. They also appealed in court, but those cases are still pending.