A couple of days back, the ruling Trinamool Congress of West Bengal had successfully managed to retain their Birbhum MP Satabdi Roy from defecting to the BJP. It now looks like the party has, however, failed to curb the trend of defection completely as TMC MLA Arindam Bhattacharya defected to the saffron camp in Delhi on Wednesday.
After sharing the stage with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee last week in Nadia, Bhattacharya, the TMC MLA from Shantipur of Nadia district, crossed over to the BJP, marking the first defection from Nadia district.
Bhattacharya, who was the vice president of the ruling Trinamool Congress of Nadia became the MLA from Congress in 2016 before he defected to the TMC in 2017 and after re-election, Bhattacharya managed to retain his MLA post.
According to sources, Bhattacharya defected to the BJP as he had news that he would be replaced by his rival Ajay Dey from his constituency in the upcoming Assembly polls.
Following his defection, people from Bhattacharya’s rival camp held an agitation in Nadia and demanded the immediate resignation of Bhattacharya.
However, BJP central leader and West Bengal observer Kailash Vijayvargiya under whom Bhattacharya defected to the BJP at BJP’s central headquarters in Delhi said that Bhattacharya had defected just to work for the benefit of the common people under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to the poll analysts, Bhattacharya’s loss is a blow for the ruling party as Bhattacharya has a sizable number of voters in Nadia belt.
“By making Satabdi Roy party’s vice-president the TMC could retain the actor-turned-politician. But After Suvendu Adhikari this is a second big blow for the ruling Trinamool Congress as Bhattacharya is a popular face in Krishnagar district,” claimed the analysts.
Notably, with at least 40 heavyweight leaders defecting to the saffron camp, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has been facing new challenges each day ever since coming to power in 2011.
However, the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee has time and again claimed that those who want to leave the party can do so.
