Kolkata: Ahead of the Panchayat polls when the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has started suspending their workers at booth levels for alleged “anti party activities”, many are defecting from Opposition parties to the ruling party in several districts of the state.
At the orders of Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, over 100 workers and leaders from several districts have been suspended from the party for either submitting nominations as Independent candidates or declaring rebellion against the party’s chosen candidate. Such suspensions surfaced from Howrah, East and West Midnapore, Hooghly.
Amid such a scenario, many BJP workers are apparently defecting to the Trinamool Congress in several districts.
In South 24-Parganas about 46 families are learnt to have defected from BJP to Trinamool Congress.
This is said to have taken place at Bagda Block. Those that defected said that they have done so after seeing the amount of development work that have been done in the state under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. They accepted the party flag from the Bagda (east) Trinamool president Paritosh Kumar Saha.
TMC sources said that such mass defections to their party from opposition parties are happening in several districts. Most of them are candidates from the opposition parties BJP and Congress.
It was pointed out that earlier a Congress candidate along with 145 other families defected to Trinamool Congres within the limits of Sahebnagar Panchayat.
Recently, 400 BJP members of 70 families at Halalpur in Jagdishpur Gram Panchayat of Hematabad Assembly constituency in North Dinajpur district are said to have joined TMC.