Former Trinamul Congress heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party at Union Home Minister’s rally in Bengal’s Midnapore.
Addressing the crowd at Midnapore, Adhikari said that the TMC came into existence because of the saffron party.
“I had first met Amit Shah during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls... When I was down with Covid, my former party did not enquire about my health, while Amit Shah twice enquired about how I am, he said.
The former close associate of Mamata Banerjee alleged that her party wants to divide the nation on the lines of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, while nationalism and pluralism was the ideal of the BJP.
“Shame on the TMC for such narrow politics,” Adhikari said as the crowd roared.
“I am being called a traitor by those who themselves (TMC) are traitors. Had the BJP not been there, TMC would have never come into existence. In the next assembly polls, BJP will win Bengal and TMC will be defeated,” the 50-year-old said.
Resulting in a major rift in the state’s ruling party, five other sitting MLAs as well as East Bardhaman MP Sunil Mondal, joined the saffron party, which looks forward to winning the Assembly polls next year, in presence of Shah.
In an open letter addressed to the grassroot members of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC, Suvendu said that Bengal is standing at a critical juncture as the people of the state are destined to make a choice in the 2021 Assembly elections that will impact them forever.
“Neither West Bengal nor the Trinamool Congress is anyone's fiefdom,” he said.
Asserting that the party was not built in one day with the contribution of one person, he wrote that it was a continuous and contiguous effort on a mammoth scale, the culmination of which was the TMC's coming to power in Bengal in 2011.
Adhikari had tendered his resignation from the TMC on Thursday, a day after quitting as a member of Bengla’s Legislative Assembly.
He alleged that the TMC, which the ordinary people built brick by brick selflessly without any desires, is now filled with individuals who do not bother about anyone but themselves.
A total of nine MLAs joined the BJP on Saturday at Shah’s rally. According to NDTV, nearly 50 TMC, Congress and Left leaders switched to the saffron party in Midnapore.
TMC MLAs Banasri Maity, Silbhdrada Dutta, Biswajit Kundu, Sukra Munda and Saikat Panja took up the saffron flags at the mammoth rally at the College Grounds here.
MLA Dipali Biswas, who had won the Gajole seat in 2016 on a CPI(M) ticket but joined the TMC in 2018, was also inducted into the BJP. She has not resigned as a CPI(M) MLA.
Haldias CPI(M) MLA Tapasi Mandal, Tamluks CPI MLA Ashok Dinda and Congress MLA from Purulia Sudip Mukherjee also joined the BJP at the rally.
Former TMC MP Dasarth Tirkey also joined the BJP.
Several district-level leaders of the TMC, Left and Congress, including former minister Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, also changed sides and joined the BJP.
“By the time elections arrive, Mamata Banerjee will be left alone in the party,” the Home Minister said as the TMC members deserted the party.
Garlanding the statue of Khudiram at the freedom fighter's ancestral residence here, Shah said that he has inspired the youths of the country with his slogan 'Vande Mataram' while he was hanged by the British in 1908 at the age of 18.
“I want to tell those who are doing narrow politics in Bengal that Khudiram Bose is as much a pride of India as he is of Bengal,” he said in his address.
In an indirect attack on the TMC, he said that those doing politics over regionalism should overcome it.
Mamata and other leaders of the party have often accused the BJP of bringing in “outsiders” just before the Assembly elections.
Shah said that those brave sons of the country who fought and made great sacrifices for Independence together “could never have imagined such narrow politics of regionalism”.