TMC ex-MP Trivedi joins BJP, says Bengal ready for real change
Former TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi joined the BJP on Saturday, accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of abandoning her principles and alleging that people of the poll-bound state are distressed with “violence and corruption” under her government.
Trivedi, once a trusted aide of Trinamool Congress (TMC) president Banerjee, was inducted into the BJP by party president J P Nadda and other leaders, including Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Dharmendra Pradhan, and he claimed that the poll-bound state is now going to see a “real change”.
The former TMC leader told reporters here that the party he was in earlier, a family is “served”, and he is now joining a party which serves people.
The development comes weeks after he announced quitting his Rajya Sabha membership on the floor of the House deploring “violence” in the state and claiming that he felt stifled in the regional party.
Lauding the former Union minister who started his political career with the Congress and then joined the Janata Dal before spending over two decades in the TMC as a principled politician, Nadda said he was earlier a right person in the wrong party and is now in the right party. Trivedi said he had been waiting for this “golden moment” and added that family is supreme in some parties but it is people who are supreme in the BJP. The saffron party would not have seen such a growth if it had not put the interests of the country foremost, he said.
Slamming its former member for switching over to the BJP, the TMC said he is “ungrateful” and has backstabbed the ruling party in West Bengal ahead of the assembly polls.