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Bengal BJP MLAs offered state security day after meeting Mamata Banerjee
The meeting of the two MLAs with Mamata Banerjee on Monday had sparked speculation of their return to the TMC.
Sunil Singh and Biswajit Das, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators who met chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her chamber at the state assembly on Monday afternoon, sparking speculations of their return to the old party, made news again on Tuesday when the government offered them personal security cover.
Though no Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader or government official commented on the development, Singh and Das, who represent Noapara and Bongaon North constituencies of North 24 Parganas district respectively, said police personnel went to their residences on Tuesday morning but they refused the security cover.
Singh is the brother-in-law of Arjun Singh, the BJP’s heavyweight Lok Sabha member from Barrackpore, who left the TMC prior to the Lok Sabha polls and wrested the seat by defeating the ruling party’s then sitting MP Dinesh Trivedi.
“Two policemen from Noapara police station came to me and said they had been sent to provide security. I sent them back. Central paramilitary forces are already deployed for me. Why should I need state police personnel?” said Sunil Singh.
Dismissing the speculations, he said, “I am very much in the BJP. Has any TMC leader said on record that I am returning to their party? We met the chief minister and had talks on some ongoing projects.”
Das gave a similar reaction. “I do not need security from the state government. People are reading too much into our meeting with the chief minister,” he said.
With turncoats from TMC boosting the BJP ahead of the assembly election in April-May, Banerjee’s meeting with the legislators made news.
Singh and Das were welcomed into the BJP at the party’s headquarters in Delhi in June 2019, a month after the BJP set a record by winning 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.
Banerjee went to the assembly to attend the budget session. Das was seen touching her feet to seek her blessings. Urban development minister Firhad Hakim and food and supplies minister Jyoti Priyo Mullick were present during the 20-minute meeting.