The exodus is TMC is continuing unabated. It is however still not known how many leaders will desert Mamata Banerjee and join BJP until the polls are announced by the Election Commission. Bengal BJP leaders project an ambitious figure of 58 to 60 TMC MLAs who might change camps to BJP. TMC is 67 MLAs ahead of the magic figure of 147 in the state assembly. At present TMC has 213 MLAs and BJP only 3. Today late evening five (5) TMC leaders Rajiv Banerjee, Rathin Chakraborty, Vaishali Dalmia, Prabir Ghoshal and Parthasarathi Chatterjee joined BJP in Delhi in presence of Union home minister Amit Shah who greeted them to the party. Actor Rudraneil Ghosh, a one-time considred Mamata Banerjee associate also joined BJP alongside others. Rajiv was a TMC minister while Prabir and Vaishali are MLAs. Rathin was Mayor of Howrah and Parthasarathi a TMC front ranker from Ranaghat. BJP’s national vice-president Mukul Roy was present on the occasion along with Kailash Vijayvargiya,, the party”s central leader who is in charge of state BJP.
Union home minister Amit Shah who skipped tomorrow’s scheduled meeting at Dumurjala Howrah is likely to grace the ocassion on the virtual. Textile Minister Smriti Irani will be present in the meeting. There are rumours of Rajnath Singh attending the occasion. Tomorrow’s BJP meeting at Dumurjala is likely to see many more TMC leaders from Howrah and Hooghly joining the BJP. In the past one month TMC is facing a major exodus crisis and has lost a number of front line leaders to BJP. TMC supremo Mamata yesterday took a desperate stand against the party deserters with a vow that they will be never be allowed to return to the party. TMC will launch a massive anti BJP campaign across the state within 1 and 15 February.
Bengali