West Bengal MLA from Raiganj Krishna Kalyani joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, PTI reported. He had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party nearly four weeks ago.
TMC Secretary-General Partha Chatterjee welcomed him into the party. Kalyani told reporters that no self-respecting person can work freely in the BJP.
“I was increasingly thinking that I cannot be a part of BJP anymore,” Kalyani said. “If I had not spoken in favour of [Chief Minister] Mamata Banerjee’s welfare policies before the Assembly polls, I had made a mistake that I want to correct now.”
Kalyani criticised the Centre’s “anti-people policies”, and alleged that the Union government did not take any steps to rein in fuel prices.
The MLA added that there was no audit of good work in the BJP, the Hindustan Times reported. “There is only conspiracy,” he said. “You cannot win an election with just conspiracy. To win an election you need development.”
Kalyani was earlier with the Trinamool Congress but shifted to the BJP before the West Bengal Assembly elections. He quit the BJP on October 1 after the party issued him a showcause notice for speaking out against its state chief Sukanta Majumdar and Raiganj MP Debashree Chaudhuri.
Kalyani is the fifth MLA to have crossed over from the BJP to the TMC after the latter’s victory in the West Bengal elections in May. The other four are Mukul Roy, Tanmoy Ghosh, Biswajit Das and Soumen Roy.
Commenting on the development, Majumdar said that Kalyani should explain how he suddenly “woke up” to the TMC’s policies, according to PTI.
“Kalyani will get a befitting reply from the people of Raiganj in the future,” he said.
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