TMC LEADERS ‘CORRUPT’; IF SOURAV JOINS POLITICS HE MAY JOIN BJP: BAISHALI DALMIYA

Baishali Dalmiya, the Trinamool Congress MLA from Bally constituency in West Bengal’s Howrah district— and the daughter of the late Jagmohan Dalimiya— has lashed out at the TMC leadership in the district, calling them “corrupt and termites”. In an exclusive conversation with The Sunday Guardian, Dalmiya also called Prashant Kishor the most “incompetent” person she has ever come across. Dalmiya also talked about her family friend Sourav Ganguly and his future in politics. Excerpts:

Q: It seems you are unhappy with the TMC. What are the reasons for your unhappiness with the TMC?

A: There are reasons why I joined politics in 2016 after my father’s demise. I came into politics with a lot of vision, a lot of hope, with a lot of ideas and I wanted to do something good for the common people.

Even before I joined politics, I was into social work, but then I was not getting to work with the common people and address their real issues. But soon after becoming MLA, I realised that there was not much scope of working for the common man within the TMC.

There are no funds which are allocated for development work for the common man, apart from the Rs 60 lakh given every year. A lot of projects were supposed to be done in the last two to three years, but then again, they were not completed since no funds were given. Even during the lockdown and during the Amphaan cyclone in Bengal, the government had nothing to give to the people. I had spent more than Rs 20-25 lakh from my own pocket to help the people and provide them with whatever they needed. On the other hand, the Bengal government was not givone