West Bengal minister Bachchu Hansda and Tehatta MLA Gouri Sankar Dutta joined the BJP on Wednesday after being denied nominations for the assembly polls by the Trinamool Congress. Hansda, the Minister of State for North Bengal Development, joined the BJP in presence of its state president Dilip Ghosh. He is a two-time MLA from the Tapan seat in the Dakshin Dinajpur district. Dutta, the MLA from Tehatta in Nadia, is a veteran politician. He also switched over to the BJP as defections continued to rock the ruling Trinamool Congress weeks ahead of the high-stakes election. Besides, Bengali actor Bonny Sengupta also joined the BJP. His close friend and actor Koushani Mukherjee recently joined the TMC and is a candidate from the Krishnanagar Uttar seat.
Express News Service
KOLKATA: Barely 72 hours after the Trinamool Congress announced the full list of candidates fielded in the upcoming Assembly elections, one of the contestants, in a bizarre move, joined the BJP on Monday along with the ruling party’s four other incumbent MLAs, who were denied tickets.
The defection took place at the party’s Hastings election office in south Kolkata.
Sarala Murmu was in the list announced by TMC supremo on Friday last week and was selected for the Habibpur Assembly constituency, reserved for a scheduled tribe candidate, in north Bengal’s Malda district.
Sensing her defeat, Sarala decided to jump ship and join the BJP, sources in the TMC said.
Bengal: As BJP Aggressively Engineers Defections, TMC Struggles to Retain Leaders
TMC candidate from Habibpur in Malda district, Sarala Murmu, reversed the usual trend of openly disgruntled TMC leaders joining BJP by jumping ship even after she had been named candidate.
Former TMC leaders, including Mamata Banerjee s confidant, Sonali Guha, join BJP on Monday, March 8. Photo: Twitter/@Mosarra30650416
Politics08/Mar/2021
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate from Habibpur in Malda district â Sarala Murmu â met Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Kolkata on Sunday and joined the party on Monday, March 8. The development prompted an embarrassed TMC to replace Murmu with Pradeep Baskey as the candidate of Habibpur constituency which goes to polls on April 26. The party cited âill healthâ.
Defections from Trinamool mar poll landscape
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Moral victory, says Bharatiya Janata Party, while the Trinamool Congress terms it ‘good riddance’
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TMC leaders Sonali Guha (4th from right) and Sarala Murmu (2nd from right) joining BJP in Kolkata on Monday.
Moral victory, says Bharatiya Janata Party, while the Trinamool Congress terms it ‘good riddance’
The defection of 88-year-old four-time Trinamool Congress MLA from Singur Rabindranath Bhattacharya to the BJP could not have come at a worse time. Mr. Bhattacharya known as “master
moshai (teacher)” is not only respected for his integrity, but he was also the face of the protests against forcible land acquisition at Singur for the Tata Nano small car project.
Sonali Guha, once a close aide of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and a four-time MLA of the party, on Sunday said she will join the BJP, two days after being denied a ticket for the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal.