Kharagpur exodus: Thousands of BJP workers join Trinamool
Kolkata: Thousands of BJP supporters from Kharagpur joined Trinamool Congress on Friday.
Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, veteran party leader and state Power minister, handed over party flags and inducted them into the party. Party MLA Arjun Singh was also present on the occasion. The event was held at Trinamool Bhavan.
It may be mentioned that Dilip Ghosh, state BJP president, is the MLA from Kharagpur.
The BJP supporters wrote several letters to party supremo Mamata Banerjee and expressed their willingness to join Trinamool Congress. Accordingly, Arjun Singh was deputed to talk to them.
It may be mentioned that a large number of Forward Bloc supporters, led by Paresh Adhikari in North Bengal and Mortaja Hussain in North 24-Parganas, had joined Trinamool Congress last week.
Political experts said that joining of such a large number of BJP workers will affect the party's prospects in the Kharagpur belt. In the 2011 Assembly election, Dilip Ghosh had defeated veteran Congress leader Gyan Singh Sohanpal. It was for the first time since Independence that BJP had got the seat.
Along with BJP, many Congress and CPI(M) supporters of the area also joined Trinamool Congress.
Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said thousands of BJP supporters had left Kharagpur in buses, but all of them could not turn up at Trinamool Bhavan and thus were not present at the time of formal induction.
"It was a major gain for our party. They were constantly in touch with our leaders and formally they joined Trinamool today," the minister added.
Kharagpur was previously a traditional CPI base with leaders like Biswanath Mukhopadhyay, Gita Mukherjee and Narayan Choubey. Majority of the youths from the party had joined Trinamool Congress before the 2011 election.
But over the years, many had joined BJP and the organisation of the party began to grow. BJP fielded Dilip Ghosh as its candidate in the 2016 Assembly election. Ghosh, in his inaugural debut, defeated
Gyan Singh Sohanpal to become an MLA.
However soon, factionalism surfaced in BJP, affecting its progress. Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said the youths who have joined Trinamool Congress keep faith in the all round development carried out by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
"The youths have realised that in Bengal, mere criticism of the ruling party will not help them achieve anything. Development is the key word in Bengal and people are in favour of development," he said.
