TMC sees desertions in Howrah, South 24 Pgs

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress’ minister of state from Dakshin Dinajpur, Bachhu Hansda, and former Nadia unit president and Tehatta MLA Gourishankar Dutta joined BJP at its Hastings party office here on Wednesday after they were denied tickets for the Bengal assembly polls.
The BJP had an entry from Tollywood too, with actor Bonny Sengupta taking the party flag from Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh.On January 24, his mother, Piya Sengupta, had joined Trinamool. The same day, Bonny’s friend, actor Koushani Mukherjee, had joined Trinamool and later got the poll ticket from Krishnagar.
Ghosh is not contesting from Kharagpur Sadar assembly constituency, from where he had made his debut entry in the West Bengal assembly in 2016. Ghosh resigned as MLA after he got elected in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP has fielded actor Hiran Chatterjee from this seat.
According to Bengal BJP leaders, the party may not field the 18 party MPs from Bengal in the assembly polls.
Goursihankar Dutta said he felt let down the way he was dropped from Trinamool’s candidate list. After taking the BJP flag along with son Ayan, he said: “I expected that the party would inform me before dropping me from the candidate list.”
Desertions from Trinamool also continued in Howrah since former minister Rajib Banerjee left the party to join BJP. Howrah Municipal Corporation’s former mayor-in-council member Nasreen Khatoon and outgoing councillors Shyamal Roy (ward 44) and Chaitali Biswas (ward 57) joined BJP on Wednesday. Trinamool leaders from Bally, Roshan Thakur and Tarun Pati, too took the BJP flag from Rajib Banerjee.
Three outgoing Trinamool councillors, now administrators of the party-run Panihati Municipality, took the BJP flag, heaping complaints on Trinamool’s Panihati MLA and party chief whip in assembly Nirmal Ghosh and his family.
Cracks appeared in the Trinamool bastion of South 24 Parganas when former party MP Gobinda Naskar’s younger daughter and party MP Pratima Mandal’s sister Jayanti took the BJP flag. A zilla parishad member from Falta, falling in Trinamool leader Abhishek Banerjee’s Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency, joined BJP.