Former CPI(M) leader joins TMC

Kolkata: Former CPI(M) leader Pankaj Roy Sarkar on Sunday joined the Trinamool Congress. Sarkar, who joined TMC on Sunday, took the party flag from senior leader Aroop Biswas, Trinamool MP-elect Kirti Azad, among others.

After joining, Sarkar said that he was inspired by the several welfare initiatives of the ruling dispensation in Bengal.

Sarkar, who is learnt to have left his job at ECL and joined the Left party as a whole timer led by the then CPI(M) leader and state Cabinet minister Nirupam Sen, was in touch with TMC for quite a while. Sources said that he was warned before but he did not pay heed to it.

Pankaj was mainly responsible for looking after the organisation of CPI(M) in Durgapur.

At the same time he looked after the IT cell of the state CPI(M).The CPI(M)’s Burdwan West district committee on Sunday issued a notice to officially announce that Pankaj Roy Sarkar has been expelled from the party for deviating from the party line, keeping in touch with Opposition Trinamool Congress and breaking the party’s code of discipline.