In what might turn out to be a major embarrassment for Mamata Banerjee, about 600 workers from her party joined the BJP in West Bengal, if claims of BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh are to be believed:
600 Karyakartas from TMC including running “Panchayat Members” today joined #BJPFamily at AshanNagar(ZP-21), Nadia Uttar Org. Zela. pic.twitter.com/O2IHguhN2T
— Dilip Ghosh (@DilipGhoshBJP) March 27, 2018
As claimed above, these 600 TMC workers joined the BJP in a ceremony organised at Ashan Nagar in the state’s Nadia District. Of these 600 new members, some are also current Panchayat members of the TMC.
Such a defection raises the question whether political workers at the grassroots are losing faith in the TMC and possibly Mamata Banerjee, and whether they are starting to see the BJP as a alternate political force in the state.
Besides this incident there have been various other instances of people choosing to quit the TMC and in most cases heading over to the BJP.
One of the biggest high profile exits from the TMC, former union minister Mukul Roy joined the BJP in November 2017, after quitting his former party in September of that year. Former captain of India’s football team Baichung Bhutia too quit the TMC in February, but hasn’t yet associated with any other political party.
This exodus from the TMC has also extended to the state of Tripura.
In February, 400 TMC members from the state including 16 state committee members of the party had joined the BJP. This was preceded by three TMC leaders including the party’s founder chairman and incumbent vice-president in the state Arun Chandra Bhowmik joining the BJP.
