Srabanti Chatterjee quits BJP, says party leaders 'lack sincerity'

Kolkata: Barely seven months after joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), actor Srabanti Chatterjee announced severing all ties with the saffron party on Thursday.

She expressed her displeasure with the party's functioning in Bengal and stated that the saffron party's "lack of initiative and sincerity" towards the welfare of the state has prompted her to take such a decision.

"Severing all ties with the BJP, the party for which I fought the last state elections. Reason being their lack of initiative and sincerity to further the cause of Bengal," Srabanti wrote on her Twitter handle.

The actor had joined the BJP in March, just ahead of the Bengal Assembly elections, at a time when many celebrities had joined the BJP. She had joined the party in the presence of the then-BJP Bengal president Dilip Ghosh and party's state election in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya.

She had contested on a BJP ticket from the Behala Paschim constituency and was defeated by Trinamool Congress (TMC) veteran Partha Chatterjee by a convincing margin of 50,884 votes.

Since her defeat in the Assembly polls, Srabanti was hardly seen in any political programme of the BJP in the state which made it evident that she was distancing herself from the party.

"Everybody is finding it difficult to stay with the BJP which is functioning with mercenaries. So with every passing day, the lamps are out one by one (those who had joined BJP are severing ties)," Partha Chatterjee, secretary-general of TMC said.

He added that Srabanti's close relatives are residents of Behala and he still maintains good contact with them. On being asked whether Srabanti will be welcomed if she desires to join the TMC, Chatterjee said that it will not be any individual's decision but the central leadership will take the call.

Sukanta Majumdar, the BJP state president, alleged that actors who have joined BJP are not getting the chance to do films and this might have prompted Srabanti to leave the party.

The actor's leaving the saffron brigade comes at a time when veteran BJP leader Tathagata Roy trained his guns on senior BJP leaders and stated that the party leaders were only interested in "women and graft".