The Congress has been left red-faced, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) engineering yet another defection in its ranks this time, hijacking a whole civic body in Nadia district in South Bengal.
“As it is in power, the Trinamool, is doing whatever it wants by engineering defection in the Opposition parties but it will not succeed for too long,” Pradip Bhattacharya Pradesh Congress president said adding the Congress would bounce back with double force in the area as “the people will not take this betrayal lying down.”
Bengal’s ruling outfit had on Tuesday got the entire force of Congress councillors from Coopers’ Camp municipality to join its ranks.
Coopers’ had traditionally been a Congress stronghold and but “money has played an important role in the defections”, said a senior PCC member adding “now one knows how the ill-gotten money from the chit-fund scams are being used by the Trinamool to expand its political base.”
Eleven councillors including the chairman of the municipality Shibu Baen switched over to the Trinamool Congress nullifying the Congress’ landslide victory that it registered in 2012 by winning all but one seats in the municipality.
The development came within a fortnight of a similar coup by the Trinamool in Sainthia municipality where the party overthrew the Congress-led House by drawing nine members to its side including the chairman. Sainthia had been held by the Congress for the past 15 years.
Nadia with its district president and PCC member Shankar Singh has been a strong Congress bastion which has of late dwindled progressively in the Trinamool’s favour.
Curiously the fighting between the Congress and the Trinamool had shown some interesting results in the district with the left Front clawing back winning almost 50 percent of the seats here leading the Trinamool to “concentrate further” in the region. Pocketing Cooper’s Camp the home town of a renowned Bollywood actress of the yesteryear has been the first target for the Trinamool ever since the party think tank decided to reorganise itself in the district.
Not only the Congress but the Marxists had also suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Trinamool with three left members of the Haldia municipality switching sides to join the Trinamool a couple of months ago causing the left board to fall.
Refuting charges of horse-trading senior Trinamool leader Mukul Roy on Wednesday said “the Opposition outfits should match the Trinamool by performance and not bringing false charges. They are getting nervous because their leaders and workers are joining the Trinamool seeing the good performance of our party. This trend will continue in the future,” he said.
The latest incidents of defection is seen as a sweet revenge taken by the Trinamool Congress after its Diamond Harbour MP Somen Mitra openly declared that he would join the Congress after resigning his post.