Santipur’s Trinamul MLA Arindam Bhattacharya Joins BJP

Arindam Bhattacharya

New Delhi/Nadia, Jan. 20: Trinamul Congress MLA from Nadia’s Santipur Arindam Bhattacharya joined Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi on Wednesday afternoon creating a speculation of fresh exodus from the party.

Bhattacharya, who originally won as a Congress nominee in 2016 assembly poll, had joined the ruling party in Bengal during June 2017, received BJP membership from party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya at the party headquarters in the capital.

Bhattacharya is the 8th Trinamul MLA to join BJP since 7 MLA along with Suvendu Adhikari joined the saffron camp at a public meeting in Midnapore in presence of home minister Amit Shaah in last month.

Trinamul insiders claimed that Bhattacharya was not a popular choice in the party and his joining to BJP would hardly make any impact on the organisation. Bhattacharya’s joining to the Trinamul led to major rift inside the leadership including incidents of clashes with faction led by former MLA and civic body chief Ajoy De. The rift turned to such a passe that party’s top leadership including Mamata Banerjee had to intervene on a number of occasions to pacify the erring rivals.

Trinamul MP and party’s Nadia district president Mahua Moitra refused to comment on his joining to BJP except conveying ‘best wishes’ to him. “My best wishes for him”, she summarily said when asked for her reaction.

On the other hand BJP’s Nadia leadership also made a restrained reaction. Party MP Jagannath Sarkar said, “I have nothing to say since decision to take him to the party taken by top leadership”.

Justifying the reason behind leaving Trinamul, Bhattacharya said, “There was no freedom to work… The ruling party has no vision, no future planning, except politics and personal attack. The state has become synonymous with corruption. So I decided to leave Trinamul to restore the lost pride of Bengal”.

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