In poll-bound Bengal, TMC turncoats return to party in large numbers

KOLKATA: Ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress is leaving no stone unturned to help workers join the party from BJP and in the last two months almost 1,000 workers from the saffron brigade have joined TMC in Bengal.

According to statistics provided by the TMC, in Cooch Behar, around 100 workers from BJP joined TMC in the past 20 days. In North Bengal and South Bengal districts, almost 500 workers from the saffron party have joined TMC.

Sources in the party said some prominent leaders from BJP are likely to shift to TMC before the Assembly elections and the leadership is now scrutinising each and every worker's details before inducting him/her into the party.

On August 3, Biplab Mitra, a prominent leader from North Bengal, returned to TMC after quitting BJP. Mitra, who was a former TMC MLA from Harirampur in South Dinajpur district, had switched over to the BJP in June last year in the presence of BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya.

On Monday, former president of Hooghly district Sankha Dutta who joined BJP last year rejoined TMC. Along with Dutta, 100 odd BJP workers also joined TMC.

TMC sources maintain that workers are rejoining the party as they were not given the due respect and post in BJP as promised at the time of their entry. Most of the workers were frustrated as they have not been given any major responsibility for the upliftment of the BJP unit in the district.

On Sunday, around 50 workers of 3 number block of Garbeta in West Midnapore joined TMC from BJP. At Kalyani too under the leadership of TMC district secretary Arup Mukherjee and councillor of Kalyani municipality Ramedranath Biswas, around 41 workers ditched BJP.

Dutta said: "I joined BJP from TMC thinking that I will be given a bigger role to uplift the unit in the district. But I saw that my responsibilities are limited and whenever you need to create any strategy for the upliftment of the BJP unit, we need to take permission from the Central authority. It takes time and here we are puppets running a show. I feel that my energy is being under-utilised and so I have again decided to join TMC."

Biplab Mitra who also joined TMC from BJP feels that during the Lok Sabha elections, BJP leaders used to make them believe "the amount of work we need to carry out in each district to promote BJP in Bengal was huge, but ultimately we saw that power rests with only a few in the Bengal BJP and there is hardly any scope to prove ourselves. During the Lok Sabha polls, we have successfully helped many TMC workers to join BJP but we were not given due credit. The state leadership took full credit of the work that was carried out in various districts for the upliftment of BJP.

It started with Cooch Behar where 100 BJP workers of Dhangdinguri area joined TMC.