Nirmalya Mukherjee
TMC MLA of Uttarpara Prabir Ghoshal today said, “ TMC is now converted to a Mamata Banerjee fan club’’. Ghoshal recently quit two post from the party.
An anguished Ghoshal said “ I have resigned from positions but I shall not keep away from working for the people of my constittuency. I will not sit idle or hands down. I will decide on my next step within a couple of days.
Union home minister Mr Amit Shah is expected to arrive in Kolkata tomorrow night. On his last two visits a number of state and local TMC leaders had joined BJP in his presence. There is speculation that 6 MLAs from Hooghly are in line to join BJP. Besides Ghoshal, the others are – Rabindranath Bhattacharya (Singur), Rachpal Singh (Tarakeswar), Swati Khondaker (Chanditala), Krishna Chandra Santra (Arambagh) and Manas Majumdar (Goghat).
This time also there are speculations that alongside Ghoshal some other TMC MLAs like Vaishali Dalmiya of Bally, Howrah and Lakshmi Ratan Shukla from North Howrah might join BJP. Political observers feel, Ghoshal’s entry in BJP is almost certain as he is close to his one-time journalist colleague Rantideb Sengupta, who fought on a BJP ticket for Howrah constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Hailing from a Leftist family back ground Sengupta is also considered close to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS). Sengupta’s parents late Sunil Sengupta and Geeta Sengupta were front ranking leaders of Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), a constituent of the CPM backed Left Front in West Bengal.
Sources said, Ghoshal was at loggerheads with the party’s Sreerampore MP Kalyan Bandyopadhyay and district leader Dilip Yadav. Bandyopadhyay’s alleged irrate and rustic behaviour might have ruffled feathers with Ghoshal.
He resigned from the party’s district core committee and spokesman post. He had accused the party for interfering in his local area development activities. Prabir had worked out detailed local area development plans for building roads and improving educational activities in at least three colleges within Uttarpara.
Although Ghoshal had highlighted his development plans to party supremo Mamata Banerjee, it was thwarted. Mamata, Ghoshal says, in confidence failed to salvage a lost situation. Hooghly has 18 assembly seats and was considered as a Mamata strong hold until 2019 Lok Sabha polls when TMC lost the Hooghly seat to BJP’s Locket Chatterjee and was well behind BJP in a number of assembly segments, especially Sreerampore proper.
TMC won Arambagh by a questionable and slender margin. The winnner Aparupa Poddar has also joined the BJP bandwagon.
Prabir’s accusation is reminiscient of allegations once made by Kabir Suman (Suman Chattaopadhyay), singer MP of TMC from Jadavpur. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections Suman won Jadavpur – a traditional Leftist bastion. He was sidelined by the party and finally quit when he refused to handover MPLAD funds to the party.
Of late, there is a huge exodus from TMC to BJP. Prominent TMC leaders like Suvendu Adhikary and Sovan Chatterjee have joined BJP. Other leaders like Rajib Bandyopadhyay and many more are waiting on wings. Unable to tame the exodus a desperate Mamata Banerjee has already announced that those leaving the party will not be allowed re-entry.
BJP claims that in all 58 MLAs will join the party before the elections, that are scheduled to be announced very soon. The TMC break took place first in November 2018 when Mukul Roy joined BJP. Roy is now BJP’s national vice-president and the chief strategist in the 2021 state assembly polls.
Disclaimer
This news article is prepared or accomplished by Nirmalya Mukherjee in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of kolkatatoday.com
Bengali