Trinamool Congress suffered yet another setback as BJP on Monday filched a whole district board, an MLA and a district Trinamool president from the Bengal ruling party while its senior leader Mukul Roy said what the people saw on Monday was only a trailer of the movie that was going to be enacted in seven stages.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recent endeavours to revive her party in North Bengal suffered a major setback as former South Dinajpur district TMC party president Biplab Mitra joined the BJP along with local Zilla Parishad president Lipika Roy who switched over to the saffron outfit with a team of 10 ZP members.
A third blow to the TMC came from Kalchini further deep inside North Bengal’s Dooars area from where sitting party MLA Wilson Champramary joined the saffron outfit. With Champramary’s joining the BJP the total number of Trinamool MLAs joining the saffron outfit post general elections went up to five.
All the TMC leaders joined the BJP in Delhi in presence of Kailash Vijabargiya the party’s observer for Bengal and Mukul Roy.
With the South Dinajpur 10 ZP members joining the BJP the 18-member district board will naturally go into the hands of the saffron outfit. Former TMC MP and present TMC district president Arpita Ghosh who replaced Mitra in the wake of the general elections that saw South Dinajpur (Balurghat seat) going to the BJP however said at least four out of the 10 ZP members who had joined the BJP would soon come back to the TMC.
“They told me that they were forcibly taken to Delhi and promised to rejoin the Trinamool after they return to Balurghat,” she said.
In Delhi, Roy told reporters, “this is only a part of the first phase of the seven stages in which the TMC leaders will join the BJP … by the end of the seventh phase Mamata Banerjee Government will fall from power,” reminding “yeh to abhi trailer hei, pura picture abhi baki hei (this is only the trailer and the whole film is to come).”
On why he joined the BJP Champramary said “Mamata Banerjee has converted TMC a one-man party. She runs it according to her own whims and fancies. No one has any voice in the party as everyone must carry out her orders. She suppresses the voices of the people in a manner that today her party is trying to impose Bengali language on the people. They are telling that if anyone has to live in Bengal he has to read Bengali. This is unacceptable.” The turncoat MLA further said, “TMC is charting the CPI(M)’s path with more ferocity.”
Mitra once TMC’s charge de affairs in North Bengal and a powerful organiser too echoed Champramary’s voice saying “people have come to know about Mamata
Banerjee’s dictatorial ways even as she tries to win all the elections by putting her photograph in display. But people like us do not rely on her picture because we have our own organsational support base. We will not submit anymore to her dictation.”