While Karnataka continues to remain under saffron siege and Goa already seized, the BJP tended to shift focus to Bengal, with senior party leader Mukul Roy on Saturday claiming that 107 MLAs from CPI(M), Congress and TMC were soon going to join his party.
The Trinamool Congress, however, dismissed the claim as an “utter bunkum,” while the Left and Congress leaders remained non-committal.
Roy, who reportedly got half-a-dozen TMC legislators and scores of its corporators to join the saffron outfit post general elections that saw BJP win 18 seats at the cost of the Trinamool Congress, said, “107 MLAs from the TMC, Left and Congress will soon join our party.”
“We have their list prepared and they are in contact with us,” he said. The saffron leader, who was once a close associate of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, did not reveal the names of the MLAs who had contacted him.
Out of 295 seats in Bengal Assembly, the TMC currently has 207 MLAs while the Congress and the Left has 43 and 23 legislators respectively. The BJP accounts for 12 MLAs.
Incidentally, Saturday’s development comes on a day when most of the “poached councillors” from Kachrapara municipality in North 24 Parganas who had earlier left TMC for the BJP joined back the parent party in presence of Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee.
Similarly, a number of members of South Dinajpur district board, who had switched over to the BJP from TMC, on Saturday returned to their parent outfit even as Abhishek said more number of TMC councillors who had left the party would join back the outfit.
Pooh-poohing Roy’s claim about 107 MLAs ready to quit his party, Abhishek, who also is the nephew of Mamata, said, “Let them first retain the ‘poached councillors’, the leaders whom they had arm-twisted into joining the BJP earlier.”
“Those who cannot retain its poached members are dreaming of taking away 107 MLAs. Not a single person will go to the BJP,” he said.
None of the Congress or Left leaders made any comment. A senior Left leader only said his party had no information of any MLA quitting the Front.
