Kolkata: Mortaja Hossain, Forward Bloc leader and former minister in the Left Front cabinet, joined Trinamool Congress on Thursday.
Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee handed over the flag to Hossain, who was the minister in charge of Relief in the cabinet of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. It may be mentioned that another leader of Forward Bloc Paresh Adhikari, who was also a minister in the LF government, had joined Trinamool on Monday.
Chatterjee said the ministers from the erstwhile Left Front government have joined Trinamool as they support the development that has been carried out throughout the state in the past seven years and are against the divisive politics
of BJP. Chatterjee alleged that BJP had brought musclemen from neighbouring states to create trouble in Bengal. He said in Narayangarh in West Midnapore, a party worker had been killed by goons backed by BJP. "BJP is trying to create trouble in Bengal to stall the development work taken up by Mamata Banerjee. People are watching them and will throw them out."
It may be mentioned that 500 workers from Forward Bloc had joined Trinamool Congress on Tuesday in Cooch Behar. More than 50 BJP workers have also joined Trinamool in Jhargram and West Midnapore. Most of them had won in Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity in the three tier Panchayat elections.
Chatterjee said that the people of Bengal will not tolerate the highhandedness and arrogance of BJP leaders. "Bengal has a different political culture and BJP leaders will have to understand that before launching movements," he said.