West Bengal: BJP's Alipurduar MLA Joins TMC Ahead Of Panchayat Election
West Bengal panchayat polls: Alipurduar MLA Suman Kanjilal has switched over to the Trinamool Congress from the BJP right before the panchayat elections in West Bengal.
The BJP's Alipurduar MLA Suman Kanjilal joined the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Sunday. Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee invited him to join the party at his Camac Street office. Kanjilal is the sixth BJP MLA to have joined the TMC in recent times.
The blow to BJP comes right ahead of the panchayat election in the state, which are likely to be held in March.
The BJP won 77 seats in the Assembly polls. Two MPs of the party also won MLA posts. However, they later resigned as MLAs. The Trinamool cashed in on the situation and won the byelections in both the constituencies. Currently, the BJP is now down to 69 MLAs in the West Bengal assembly.
In 2021, the Trinamool failed to win a single seat in the Alipurduar district, despite winning across the state. The BJP, meanwhile, won all five seats in the district.
Kanjilal, who dealt the latest blow to the BJP, is a journalist. He joined politics in 2020. BJP had first announced the name of economist Ashok Lahiri for the Alipurduar seat. However, Kanjilal was later nominated for the seat and Lahiri was moved to Balurghat.
The BJP MLA's switchover before the panchayat polls could worry the saffron camp. BJP General Secretary Manoj Tigga is yet to react on the development. However, a source of the BJP parliamentary committee said that Kanjilal had been in Kolkata for the last three days. He switched parties with the help of another MLA, who had left the BJP earlier to join the Trinamool Congress.
BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya claimed that BJP the MLA's change of party will be of little significance and is will not affect his party much, reported Anandabazar Patrika Online.
The five other MLAs who moved awaya from the BJP after the 2021 elections are Mukul Roy, Soumen Roy, Krishna Kalyani, Biswajit Das, and Tanmoy Ghosh.
Krishnagore North BJP MLA and BJP Central Committee vice-president Mukul Roy joined the Trinamool right after the 2021 Bengal Assembly polls. Soon after that, Kaliaganj MLA Soumen Roy, Raiganj MLA Krishna Kalyani, Bagda MLA Biswajit Das and Bishnupur MLA Tanmoy Ghosh followed him.
Opposition leader Subhendu Adhikari has appealed to Speaker Biman Banerjee to disqualify them as MLAs.
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