Kolkata, March 11 At least, four BJP Lok Sabha members from West Bengal are keen to shift to Trinamool Congress immediately, claimed the state general secretary of the ruling party Kunal Ghosh on Tuesday.
“However, since the Lok Sabha elections concluded less than a year back, we have asked them to wait for some time. It would be better for us if they remain in BJP and maintain contact with us during the interim period. It is not that Trinamool Congress leadership has offered them to join. Rather they have expressed their desires to our party leadership to join us,” Ghosh told the media.
At the same time without specifying the exact number, Ghosh also claimed that besides these four Lok Sabha members, a group of BJP legislators are too eager to join Trinamool Congress immediately.
“At the same time, some other important organisational office-bearers in the West Bengal unit of BJP have expressed desires to join Trinamool Congress. But as I said, they have also been asked to continue to be with BJP for some more time,” said Ghosh.
Ghosh’s comments came just a day after the BJP legislator from Haldia Assembly constituency in East Midnapore district Tapasi Mondal officially joined Trinamool Congress. She claimed that if Trinamool Congress nominated her as a candidate from the same constituency, it would be her responsibility to get elected.
Mondal is the fifth BJP legislator who, as per records of the state Assembly, is still a BJP MLA despite joining Trinamool Congress after getting elected as a BJP candidate in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.
Earlier in the day, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari claimed that the BJP would approach the Supreme Court on the MLA defection issue and even make the state Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay a party in the matter.
"Since 2011, Trinamool Congress has taken at least 56 defecting legislators into its fold. They were from all parties including BJP, Congress, CPI(M), Revolutionary Socialist Party, and the Forward Block. The Speaker has no regard towards the 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution that deals with the 'anti-defection' law," Adhikari said.
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