‘HULK’ SULKS IN BJP, REJOINS TRINAMOOL

In yet another ‘Ghar Wapsi’, BJP’s Barrackpore MP and party’s vicepresident Arjun Singh on Sunday rejoined TMC in presence of the party’s national secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

With the defection of Singh, the total number of BJP MPs came down to 16 from 18. In September 2021, former BJP Asansol MP Babul Supriyo had joined TMC after resigning from MP’s post.

For the last few weeks, Singh had been criticising the Centre over its jute policy and was upset over not being able to work “freely” in West Bengal.

Earlier in the day Singh said, “The countdown has started. If I do ghar waapsi you all will come to know. Until it’s officially done, there is no point talking about it. I have been working with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee even before she had formed a party.”

In a recent interview, Singh had blamed poor candidate selection for BJP’s loss in the Assembly election last year. Reacting on Singh’s joining the TMC, BJP national secretary Anupam Hazra said, “If someone wants to do politics for his personal benefit, what can we say about it? However, it is a huge loss.” “It’s old understanding between BJP and TMC. Modi’s people will join Didi and Didi’s people will join BJP. All the corrupt people of

Didi’s party will eventually return,” senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.

The Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency has a huge presence of Hindi-speaking voters who are mostly engaged in jute mills. Arjun Singh is a heavyweight leader from the area and was elected to the assembly

four times on a TMC ticket. Before the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he joined BJP after he was denied a TMC ticket and defeated heavyweight Dinesh Trivedi in a closely fought contest. However, after the Lok Sabha election, the (Barrackpore) constituency saw many incidents of violence.