Rebel Trinamool Congress leader Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday resigned from the membership of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, clearly indicating that his departure from the party was imminent, ANI reported. He is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to the state on December 19.
On November 27, Adhikari had resigned as West Bengal transport minister. A day earlier, the prominent Trinamool Congress leader had resigned from the post of chairperson of the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners.
Shortly after Adhikari quit from West Bengal’s Legislative Assembly, BJP Vice President Mukul Roy said that the saffron party would be happy to welcome him. “Trinamool Congress is collapsing like a house of cards,” he added. “Every day someone from the party comes to us to join BJP.”
BJP’s Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh said it would be solely Adhikari’s decision to join the saffron party. “There are rumours and people are also hoping for the same,” he said, according to ANI. “Chain of events is heading towards that. We are waiting, it is up to him to decide what does he want to do.” He also reiterated the party’s claim that there was “no democracy or respect for people in TMC”.
Adhikari, a two-term MP, had been in charge of the TMC in several districts, including Malda, Murshidabad, Purulia and Bankura. The 49-year-old-leader has a crucial support base in the state. He was also the face of the Trinamool Congress in the 2008 Nandigram movement, which by many accounts, was a major factor in the unseating of the Left Front government in the state in 2011. In the past couple of months, he has held several rallies in his individual capacity without the symbols and flags of the Trinamool Congress.
At a non-political public meeting at Haldia in East Midnapore district on Tuesday, Adhikari targeted TMC’s political stand of calling the BJP an outsider or “bahiragat”.
He said: “Our biggest identity is that we are Indian first, after that we are Bengalis. Satish babu [freedom fighter Satish Samanta] never called Nehru ji [Jawaharlal Nehru] outsider and Nehru ji never called him a non-Hindi speaking person. This is what India is all about.”
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also obliquely referred to Adhikari at a rally in Jalpaiguri district the same day. She accused rebels of profiting from the Trinamool Congress and now seeking other options. Reports said the TMC chief has not acknowledged dissenters in the party so angrily before.
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