Kolkata, Feb 5 (IANS) Suman Kanjilal, the BJP legislator from Alipurduar assembly constituency in West Bengal, who on Sunday joined the Trinamool Congress, is the only “odd man” out of the 6 saffron party MLAs who made the switch, considering the former journalist’s political career includes no instance of jumping the ship.
However, the other five BJP legislators who joined Trinamool Congress after the 2021 assembly polls have a history of being “two-time turncoats”. They first switched from Trinamool Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the 2021 polls and again went back to join the ruling party in Bengal after the elections.
Suman Kanjilal, who joined the Trinamool Congress on Sunday, has no records of any prior association with Trinamool Congress unlike the other five “turncoats”.
In fact, Kanjilal has no history of active political life before he joined the BJP ahead of the 2021 state assembly polls after quitting his job as a journalist.
The first to start this trend of “ghar wapsi” was the BJP legislator from Krishnanagar (North) assembly constituency in Nadia district, Mukul Roy in June 2021, who, before joining BJP on November 3, 2017, was first the national general secretary and the national vice-president of Trinamool Congress. After he joined BJP, he also became the saffron party’s national vice-president.
Soon, four other elected BJP legislators followed the path of “ghar wapsi” like Mukul Roy.
These four turncoat legislators were Tanmay Ghosh from Bishnupur assembly in August 2021, Biswajit Das from Bagda assembly also in August of the same year, Soumen Roy from Kaliagunj assembly in September 2021 and Krishna Kalyani from Raigunj assembly in October 2021.
All of them, like Mukul Roy, before joining the BJP, had past stints with the Trinamool Congress.
–IANS
src/pgh
