E-Paper
In Bengal’s Alipurduar, where BJP won all assembly seats, district president joins TMC
Ganga Prasad Sharma, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in north Bengal’s Alipurduar district, where the party bagged all five assembly seats in the recent polls, joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday afternoon, HT has learnt
Ganga Prasad Sharma, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in north Bengal’s Alipurduar district, where the party bagged all five assembly seats in the recent polls, joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday afternoon, HT has learnt.
“I was aggrieved for a long time because the BJP state leadership did not consult the district unit before inducting a lot of people. Had I left earlier, the party would have called me a traitor. I decided to leave after ensuring the BJP’s victory in the five assembly seats in Alipurduar,” Sharma said after joining the ruling party in Kolkata along with eight BJP office-bearers from the district.
Sharma was welcomed by TMC Rajya Sabha member Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, education minister Bratya Basu and Mukul Roy, who left the BJP, where he was the national vice-president, on June 11.
“This is the beginning of the BJP’s end in Bengal. The process has started,” quipped Roy who joined the saffron camp in November 2017 following differences with his colleagues. He was instrumental in engineering defections from the TMC over the last three years.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, as well as the recent state elections, the BJP outperformed the TMC in the north Bengal region. In 2019, the saffron camp bagged seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats in the eight districts starting from Malda to Darjeeling. In the state polls, two prominent TMC ministers lost in north Bengal while BJP candidates won 30 of the region’s 54 assembly segments where identity politics played a key role.
Even as BJP leaders in Alipurduar quickly convened a meeting of district functionaries to review the situation and stop more defections, the state leadership attempted to play down the development.
“Sharma was an old leader but his departure will not affect the organisation. The selection of a new district president was on the cards. He probably got a hint and decided to leave,” said BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu.
Meanwhile, TMC workers lodged a complaint at five police stations in north Bengal against John Barla, BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Alipurduar, for demanding a Union territory comprising the north Bengal districts. Barla voiced the demand before the local media last week and reiterated it on Sunday. “North Bengal has been neglected for decades. Only Central rule can ensure development,” he said.
BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and other leaders have said the party has made no such demand and Barla expressed his personal opinion. Ghosh also called up Barla.
TMC state leaders, however, have started a hashtag campaign, alleging that Barla’s demand has exposed the BJP’s plans to divide Bengal after failing to win the people’s mandate.
