Kolkata (WB), Sep 23 (PTI) Four BJP leaders from West Bengal's Kharagpur, along with hundreds of their supporters, joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, giving the ruling party in the state a fillip in the industrial region ahead of the assembly elections due in April-May next year.
BJP leaders Sailendra Singh, Ajoy Chatterjee, Rajdip Guha and Sajal Roy joined the TMC in the presence of Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Chandrima Bhattacharya, at the party's headquarters here.
Singh was an influential leader in the saffron party's trade union wing Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, while Guha has a mass following in several wards of Kharagpur town. Roy is a popular leader in the rural areas and Chatterjee was with the BJP for a long time, Bhattacharya, also a senior TMC leader, said.
"This is a big blow to the BJP and its state chief Dilip Ghosh in Paschim Medinipur district and Kharagpur in particular. It shows people of the constituency are no longer with the saffron party. The writing on the wall became clear with last year's by-election results," Bhattacharya told PTI.
The TMC had won the Kharagpur Sadar assembly constituency for the first time in the by-election last year.
The seat was vacated by Ghosh, who was elected as the Medinipur MP in the Lok Sabha elections.
"The four BJP leaders had become disillusioned with the functioning of the saffron party. They wanted to join our leader Mamata Banerjee to work for the masses at the grassroots," Bhattacharya said.
The senior TMC leader said 500 supporters of Singh have also joined the ruling party in the state but only around 100 of them were present at the venue so that the COVID-19 safety protocols were maintained.
Reacting to the development, Dilip Ghosh said, "Some greedy people, who maintained links with the TMC while remaining in the BJP, have left. They have been unmasked. It will not harm the party."
"The BJP members who are facing the TMC's atrocities have not left the party. They will remain with us. They will dislodge the Trinamool Congress from power in the next elections," he added.
