KOLKATA/DARJEELING: Ahead of the bypolls in the state, former MLA from Farakka and all India general secretary of Congress, Mainul Haque, resigned from the party on Tuesday. He sent his resignation to Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday afternoon.
According to sources, Haque—who was a close aide of PCC president Adhir Chowdhury, is likely to join TMC in presence of Abhishek Banerjee, party's national general secretary, on September 23.
Banerjee will visit Murshidabad to campaign in favour of TMC candidates at Shamshergunj and Jangipur. Political experts said Haque's resignation from Congress would affect the party badly. It has been learnt that many Congress workers will join TMC with Haque.
According to Haque, he couldn't work in the Congress as there was lack of coordination between the state leadership and the Central leadership. Haque was also the secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC) and a Congress observer for Jharkhand and a former party observer for Jammu & Kashmir.
"It's Haque's personal decision. We cannot say anything in this regard," said Chowdhury. In 2018, during a public meeting at Farakka Nurul Hasan College, Haque had expressed his willingness to join TMC and leave Congress.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) in Siliguri suffered yet another blow with two former Siliguri Municipal Corporation councilors joining the TMC camp. Sharmila Das and Tapas Chatterjee switched sides on Tuesday. The SMC elections are scheduled to be held in the near future. While Sharmila Das is the former councilor of ward 28, Tapas Chatterjee has been the face of the youth in the party.
"People have rejected the CPI(M). The largest threat now is communal disharmony. The only person who can check this is Mamata Banerjee," stated Chatterjee.
Dipika Shah from BJP; Arpita Das from Congress along with their supporters also joined TMC on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, 7 Gram Panchayat members of Champaguri GP, Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri district, crossed over to TMC from the BJP on Tuesday. The BJP are in control of the GP. Out of the 25 seats, BJP won 16 and TMC 9. However, with 7 joining TMC from BJP, the state's ruling party has 16 members and the BJP has 9. Soon, the TMC may claim the chair of the GP.
In another development, Mahendra Chettri, spokesperson, GNLF, resigned from the party. Chettri alleged that the GNLF president had completely surrendered the entire organisation to the BJP.