Tripura Trinamul Congress general-secretary Baptu Chakraborty on Sunday returned to his old party, the Congress, a development seen as a setback to Mamata Banerjee’s party aspiring to become an alternative to the ruling BJP in the 2023 state polls.

Chakraborty, 44, who joined Trinamul on September 22, 2021, told The Telegraph from Agartala that the party would “not” be a factor in Tripura Assembly polls, alleging that in a month or two “most” Trinamul members and leaders would join the Congress.

Chakraborty said that around 15 Trinamul candidates, who contested last year’s Agartala Municipal Corporation polls, also joined the Congress in Agartala on Sunday.

A Tripura Trinamul leader said the party held a meeting in the evening “to discuss the development”.He was welcomed to the Congress by Sudip Roy Barman, who left the BJP to rejoin his old party in February. Barman, the lone Congress MLA in Tripura, is leading the revival of the party in Tripura.

Asked why he left Trinamul so soon, Chakraborty said he did not see Trinamul “make a difference” in the Tripura polls.

He said people will vote for the party that can defeat the BJP and Trinamul is “not” that party. Chakraborty said Trinamul’s “double standard” in the vice-presidential polls and arrest of influential leader Partha Chatterjee in an alleged school jobs scam, dented its image in Tripura.

“In the presidential polls, the Opposition voted for Yashwant Sinha, then what was the reason for abstaining from the vice-presidential polls? The arrest of Partha Chatterjee in a corruption case has also dented its image,” he said.

“I don’t see it as a factor in the Assembly polls,” Chakraborty said.Chakraborty said he was emotionally attached to the Congress because whatever he was today was because of the party. "I was the state general secretary when I left the party to join the Trinamul. I was also the national general secretary of the Youth Congress from 2010 to 2013," he said.Chakraborty had contested the Assembly polls in 2013 but lost narrowly.