West Bengal: BJP MLA Kanjilal joins TMC

Kolkata: In a setback to the BJP in North Bengal considered to be the bastion of the saffron camp, a BJP MLA from Alipurduar Suman Kanjilal defected to Trinamool Congress at TMC national secretary Abhishek Banerjee office in Kolkata.

The dream of BJP to form a government in West Bengal remained unfulfilled in the 2021 Assembly election after it won just 77 out of 294 seats. Out of the 77 MLA, Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanick got elected to the Lok Sabha following which they ressigned as MLAs.

Earlier, the BJP had 75 MLAs but it reduced to 69 after six MLAs defected to the ruling TMC.

Speculations were rife for the past few days that Kanjilal would join TMC. A photo of another BJP MLA Hiran Chattopadhyay went viral in Abhishek Banerjee’s office after which Hiran clarified that the photo was ‘morphed’.

It may be recalled at a rally in Contai, Abhishek had claimed that more leaders of BJP were waiting to join the TMC.

The official Twitter handle of the TMC mentioned, “Rejecting the anti-people policies & hate-laden agenda of @BJP4India, Suman Kanjilal joined the AITC family today, in the presence of our national general secretary @abhishekaitc. Yet another @BJP4Bengal MLA realises the truth that BJP has no intention to serve people!”

BJP however, said that such defections won’t affect its prospects in West Bengal.