6 including 2 nephews of Arjun Singh join Trinamool

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Friday suspended Arjun Singh from the party for a period of six years. The party will also write to the Speaker of West Bengal Legislative Assembly on Saturday and urge him to take a decision regarding Singh's post of MLA.

Singh had joined the BJP on Thursday without resigning from the posts of Trinamool's MLA and the chairman of Bhatpara Municipality.

Meanwhile, two nephews of Arjun Singh including some other Opposition party leaders from Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency joined Trinamool Congress on Friday.

Singh's nephews Sanjoy Singh who was a member of the Zilla committee of CPI(M) and Pramod Singh who was the BJP secretary of Barrackpore Mahakuma, took the party flag of Trinamool Congress from its secretary general Partha Chatterjee at Trinamool Bhavan.

Both of them said that their uncle joining the saffron party will not affect the TMC board of Bhatpara Municipality, in which Singh had been the chairman. Chatterjee asserted that there are some leaders who are trying to cause harm to the party's organisational strength from behind but the people of the state are with Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee for all round development of the state. "Their conspiracy will prove futile and people will vote for Trinamool Congress," Chatterjee added.

Four others who joined Trinamool Congress on Friday are Dharampal Gupta who was a state committee member of BJP, Jitendra Saha who had contested as an Independent Candidate in the 2016 assembly elections, Somnath Sham, general secretary of Congress, North 24-Parganas and Rajkumar Yadav, the president of Congress in Bhatpara.

North 24-Parganas district president of Trinamool Jyotipriya Mallick and Dinesh Trivedi who will be contesting for the Barrackpore seat in the Lok Sabha, were also present during the event.

Trinamool Congress on Friday also reconstituted the election committee of Bhatpara Assembly constituency, with Dharampal Gupta as its chairman. The previous committee was dissolved.

Somnath Talukder, the vice-chairman of Bhatpara Municipality, said: "Trinamool has enough councillors to form the civic body board, so Arjun Singh's departure from the party will have no effect." Bhatpara Municipality has 35 councillors, with 33 of them belonging to Trinamool Congress.