3 civic poll candidates from MP Arjun Singh's family quit BJP, withdraw nominations

KOLKATA: BJP suffered a major setback ahead of the municipal elections in the state with their party MP from Barrackpore Arjun Singh's family members quitting the saffron party and withdrawing their nominations in connection with the elections scheduled to be held on February 27.

Interestingly, all the three – Arjun Singh's brother-in-law Sunil Singh, cousin Sourav Singh and Sunil Singh's son Aditya Singh, were given had already filed nominations.

Sourav was given a ticket to contest in the civic elections in Bhatpara municipality while Aditya and Sunil were scheduled to contest from ward 17 and 18 of Garulia Municipality respectively.

The three met Trinamool Congress MLA Jyotipriya Mallick and Partha Bhowmick of North 24-Parganas district on Saturday. " They will officially join TMC on Sunday," Mallick said. Sunil Singh said that they were feeling suffocated in the BJP party and they were not being able to do any work concerning the development of the people.

Meanwhile, infighting in BJP took a new turn on Saturday when Baby Koley, a BJP leader who failed to get ticket in the civic election in Kharagpur, tore off the flex and hoardings of the official candidate in ward 10.

Koley not only destroyed the flex, she went from one house to another urging people not to vote for the official candidate.

She threatened to set the entire area on fire if people voted for the official candidate.She alleged that the candidate had paid a huge sum of money to the state BJP leaders to get tickets.