Former left leader Jyotirmoyee Sikdar joins BJP hours after Amit Shah addressed Bengal
Sikdar joined the BJP on Tuesday after home minister Amit Shah addressed the people of the state through a video conference advocating need for a change in rule in Bengal.
Asian games gold medal winning athlete-turned former Communist Party of India (Marxist) Lok Sabha MP Jyotirmoyee Sikdar joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kolkata on Tuesday hours after union home minister Amit Shah addressed the people of the state in a virtual rally.
Sikdar won from Krishnanagar Lok Sabha, defeating BJP’s former union minister Satyabrata Mukherjee, in 2004. However, she lost in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Sikdar, a middle-distance runner, had won India many laurels in international championships.
The 50-year-old sportswoman-turned-politician joined the party in the presence of BJP state unit chief Dilip Ghosh on Tuesday.
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She had contested the 2016 Assembly elections on a CPI (M) ticket but lost. Since then, she has hardly kept touch with the party, according to a state unit leader of CPI (M).
A number of former Left leaders-- including three-time sitting MLA Khagen Murmu, now a BJP MP, and former CPI(M) MLA Mahfuza Khatun, now a vice-president of Bengal BJP-- have joined the saffron party over the past couple of years.
