Kolkata : Another replication off the adage: Old wine in a new bottle. Just like the TMC, the BJP is now on a spree to buy out workers from the ruling party in Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal.
Not only is the saffron party allegedly poaching leaders from the TMC’s kitty to fill its bucket, but are also bringing in leaders from the CPI(M).
It may be mentioned that soon after Banerjee came to power in 2011, she used the same strategy of poaching leaders from the Congress and the CPI(M) to her own party. The BJP is thus using the same strategy to counter didi in her own turf by poaching leaders from TMC and CPI(M).
BJP tactics of poaching as much as leaders of the ruling party just as they did in Tripura
Three TMC MLAs and 50 councillors of four municipalities — Bhatapara , Halisahar ,Naihati and Kanchrapara — joined the BJP on Tuesday at New Delhi. The event took place in presence of general secretary of BJP for West Bengal Kailash Vijayvargiya and BJP leader Mukul Roy. The BJP is now eyeing to also capture the municipalities under their fold.
The municipal election is scheduled for next year and Assembly elections in 2021 and thus BJP is making all efforts in engineering the defection of TMC leaders to BJP’s fold.
Two TMC MLA’s, including Subrangshu Roy, MLA of Bijpur and Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya and MLA of Bishnupur, Debendra Roy , CPI(M) MLA of Hemtabad joined BJP on Tuesday. Senior BJP leadership, however, feel that the Mukul Roy is playing a key role in the poaching of the leaders.
Addressing a press conference at New Delhi headquarters, Mukul Roy said: “There are 24 councillors in Kanchrapara municipality. Out of the24 councillors ,17 have joined the BJP on Tuesday. The total number of seats in Halisahar municipality is 23. Out of that, 17 councillors including chairman and vice-chairman joined the BJP. In Naihati municipality there were 31 seats, and 29 councillors joined BJP on Tuesday. In Bhatapara out of 35 seats , 19 councillors joined BJP. All these municipalities will be governed by the BJP. We will request the district administration to officially hand over charges to BJP.”
Roy also added ” Many leaders from TMC have already contacted us and they will be joining again on 1 June to 2June. In 2021, TMC will not occupy the Opposition chair in Bengal.”
Kailash Vijaywargiya even mocked at Derek O Brien who earlier have complained to Election Commission regarding horse-trading by BJP leaders.
Here is the tweet of Kailash Vijayvargiya
On March 14, TMC leader Arjun Singh joined BJP after he was denied ticket in the Lok Sabha election. Singh is an extremely popular leader from Bhatapara and TMC leadership has chosen Dinesh Trivedi to contest the Lok Sabha polls from this seat.
Here is the tweet of the press conference at BJP headquarter in New Delhi
TMC made reshuffles in cabinet and also trying to convene meetings with local leaders and trying to control the intra -party feud
TMC is trying everything so that councillors and local leaders are not swayed away to BJP. Trinamool Congress leaders like Tapas Roy, Jyotipriyo Mullick held a meeting at Madhyamgram party office with all their leaders and urged them to stay back with the party during the party’s difficult times.
Roy said “ We have spoke with all our ground level workers and councillors on Tuesday. We have urged them to stay back with us . We will again convene meeting after two days and will develop political strategy on how to retain our leaders in this trying times.”
Mullick however said “ Such dissections from TMC to BJP is temporary and we are hopeful that people will realise this as early as possible.”
On Tuesday Mamata Banerjee made a reshuffle in her cabinet. Suvendu Adhikary has been appointed as the new irrigation minister along with the his old ministry as transport minister .Somen Mahapatra has been appointed as the public health minister and environment minster .Rajib Banerjee has been appointed as the tribal development minister. Earlier Banerjee hold the post of the irrigation department .
Subrata Mukherjee has been kept as the minister in panchayat and rural development .
Bratya Bose, who is the current in-charge of biotechnology department, has been given an additional charge of forest, along with Sujit Bose. Banerjee retained Moloy Ghatak as her law and labour minister.
Here is the tweet from ANI
What political analysts say
Maidul Islam, a senior political analysts of Centre for Studies in social science, Kolkata said: “BJP is trying to play the same politics of defection as Banerjee has done after 2011 to bring the Congress leaders and the CPI(M) leaders under her fold. In 2016 , Banerjee made a dent in the Congress bastion of Malda and Murshidabad by poaching in as many as 120 Congress leaders from zilla parishad, panchyat Samiti in his own party. At that time Adhir Chowdhury called a convention at his home turf in Behrampore: “Save the Congress” to keep all Congress leaders under their fold. But eventually Mamata succeded in making a dent in Congress leadership and Congress legislator of Rejinagar Rabiul joined TMC , two days after the meeting of the Congress leadership. “