The Trinamool Congress continued with its alleged political poaching — hunting down two sizeable fishes from the Congress — even as it got senior leader and former PCC vice president Shankar Singh and Arindam Bhattacharya, a Nadia Congress MlA to join its fold on Wednesday.
With Wednesday’s floor-crossings the Congress is not left with 36 MlAs in the State Assembly. In 2016 elections it won 44 seats after fighting jointly with the left Front. But in the past one year or so about eight Congress MlAs and two left legislators have turned coats.
What tended to sound more alarming for the Congress was Trinamool MP and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who presided over the Wednesday's floor crossing, said more leaders could switch sides. “Wait for a few days and you will see bigger names coming to the Trinamool fold,” even as State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury asked the “turncoats” to “first resign as MlAs and then contest the polls to return to the House.”
He added, “Various factors like gun, money and greed for power are responsible for switching sides.”