TMC suffers another blow as two-time MLA Dipak Haldar calls it quits

Dipak Haldar won the Diamond Harbour seat in 2011 and 2016 but was suspended for a few months in 2015 on disciplinary ground.

Dipak Haldar, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator from Diamond Harbour, which is the part of the Lok Sabha constituency having the same name and represented by TMC’s youth wing president Abhishek Banerjee, on Monday resigned from the party. He is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday.

TMC MLA Dipak Haldar. (ANI)

Haldar won the Diamond Harbour seat in 2011 and 2016 but was suspended from the TMC for a few months in 2015 on disciplinary ground.

The constituency is located in South 24 Parganas district. Diamond Habour made headlines on December 10 when BJP national president JP Nadda’s convoy was stoned by some people during his visit to a party meeting.

Haldar, who sent his resignation letter to the party by registered post, said, “I was never allowed to work freely. I was not even allowed to supervise projects that were carried out using the MLA’s area development fund. I decided to leave instead of taking the insult.”

Kunal Ghosh, the TMC spokesperson, said, “Why did he feel this urge to leave after serving as an MLA for 10 years? Like the other defectors, he, too, was blessed by wisdom just before the polls. We are neither surprised nor bothered. Haldar knew that the TMC would not field him again.”

That Haldar might leave the TMC became apparent when he met Mamata Banerjee’s aide-turned-opponent Suvendu Adhikari and another turncoat and former Kolkata mayor Sovon Chatterjee in December. Haldar is known to be close to Chatterjee.

Haldar is likely to join the BJP at Adhikari’s rally in South 24 Parganas on Tuesday.

On Saturday, former forest minister Rajib Banerjee and a group of rebels were inducted into the BJP at Union home minister Amit Shah’s Delhi residence.

Those who joined the BJP alongside Banerjee are Vaishali Dalmiya, the MLA from Bally in Howrah who was expelled by the TMC recently; Prabir Ghosal, the MLA from Uttarpara in Hooghly district; Rathin Chakraborty, former mayor of Howrah town; Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, former MLA from Ranaghat in Nadia district and actor Rudranil Ghosh, who recently started speaking against the TMC.

Banerjee, who was Bengal’s forest minister, resigned from the Domjur assembly seat in Howrah on Friday. He won the seat twice.

Vaishali Dalmiya, the daughter of former BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, joined politics in 2016. So did Ghosal, a senior journalist. Ghosh, a known face on screen, used to be a CPI(M) supporter during the Left era and switched over to the TMC after Mamata Banerjee came to power.