The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Bengal unit has decided not to take any Trinamool Congress top leaders ahead of the coming Lok Sabha polls as the party claimed to have “learned their lessons from the past” in 2021 polls, BJP State President Sukanta Majumdar said on Monday.
The saffron party, however, is open to taking grassroots workers from both Trinamool (not leaders) and CPI-M, who have concern for the welfare of the state. “They are welcome to join BJP,” the state President said.
“We have already learned lessons by burning our hands during the last assembly polls. We have learned it the hard way. We will not repeat the same mistake. We will not allow these ‘criminal’ Trinamool leaders to enter our party,” Majumdar emphasized after an organizational meeting today.
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Senior Trinamool leaders had changed camps to BJP, starting with Mukul Ray and Trinamool minister Rajib Banerjee, along with several other MLAs. Following the 2021 assembly polls, the MLAs went back to Trinamool Congress again thereby reducing the total number of BJP MLAs from 77 to 67. The BJP has continued to lose MLAs following the 2021 landslide victory of Trinamool Congress in assembly polls when it won 77 seats and emerged as the main Opposition party.
Lashing out at Trinamool Congress, Majumdar said,” Trinamool Congress is scared with the arrest of its leaders and they are trying to divert attention from the arrest of Jyoti Priya Mallick and others and thus raising the issue of deprivation of the people in connection MGNREGA and other central schemes.” Trinamool is planning to organize a movement against MGNREGA from the first week of November.
Talking about the arrest of several Trinamool leaders, Majumdar said, “It is doubtful from where the Bengal government will run in the coming days. Will it run from Tihar or Presidency jail? When Bengal will face such a Constitutional situation, the Centre will take necessary decisions.”
Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh has called the arrest of Mallick a “political vendetta”.
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