Dropped by TMC, Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh vows to contest seat he won for BJP in 2019
Arjun Singh said he was promised the TMC ticket for the Barrackpore seat the day he returned to the party one and a half years ago
KOLKATA: Arjun Singh, the Lok Sabha member from West Bengal’s Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas district, vowed on Tuesday to contest the seat against the official candidate of the Trinamool Congress amid indications that he might return to the Bharatiya Janata Party for the second time.
“I was promised that I would be given the ticket for the Barrackpore seat the day I returned to TMC one and a half years ago. I was interviewed five times for this purpose but I was not given a nomination. All my time was wasted,” a visibly agitated Singh told reporters at his office where efforts were on to wipe out signs of his connection with the ruling party.
Singh’s supporters replaced photos of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew and TMC national general Abhishek Banerjee with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his office.
Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said: “We never lost touch with Singh but the decision to field him from Barrackpore can be taken only by the central leadership.”
The BJP released the first list of its Lok Sabha candidates on March 2 but Barrackpore was not mentioned in it. A senior BJP leader said the second list was expected to be released soon.
The TMC named its candidates for all 42 seats in Bengal on March 10. The party named Partha Bhowmick, the sitting MLA from the district’s Naihati constituency from Barrackpore, not Singh.
TMC leaders said strong opposition from a section of the TMC’s leaders in North 24 Parganas, especially Jagaddal legislator Somnath Shyam, may have played a role in leaving out Singh. Somnath Shyam has accused Singh more than once of patronising criminals. Singh always denied the charges and accused Shyam of maligning him for political gains.
Singh, a heavyweight leader in the Barrackpore industrial belt, joined the BJP in March 2019 when he was the Bhatpara MLA and defeated TMC’s the then sitting Barrackpore MP Dinesh Trivedi in the Lok Sabha polls. The election was marked by violence which continues intermittently in the region.
But the BJP suffered a blow in May 2022 when Singh, who was made a state vice-president, returned to TMC after 38 months. Abhishek Banerjee welcomed Singh into TMC although the latter did not resign from the Lok Sabha.
“I left TMC because of some misunderstandings. I left BJP because of the treatment being meted out to Bengal. Our jute industry is suffering because of the Centre,” Singh said at a press conference in May 2022. Banerjee did not appear at the press conference, which was seen as a departure from practice. The announcement was made by Partha Bhowmick who has now been challenged by Singh.
“There is nothing personal in this. We are friends,” Singh said on Tuesday after refusing an offer from TMC to contest the bypoll for North 24 Parganas district’s Baranagar assembly seat. The seat has been vacant after the incumbent, senior TMC leader Tapas Roy, joined BJP on March 6.
“Those who switch camps over and over again lose credibility in the eyes of voters. We urge Arjun to be patient. He should not leave TMC,” Bhowmick said.
Singh’s son, Pawan, the sitting legislator from Bhatpara, also joined the BJP but did not return to TMC with his father in 2022.
“I told him all along that TMC will never keep its word. He seemed to believe otherwise,” Pawan Singh said.
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