The BJP suffered a blow on Thursday as the party's Ranaghat South MLA and a prominent face of the Matua community, Mukut Mani Adhikari, joined Trinamul.

Adhikari, the Nadia unit chief of All India Matua Mahasangha, was present on the stage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Arambagh meeting on March 1 as a Matua face of the saffron camp.

Trinamul insiders claimed that Adhikari, a doctor, is being mulled as the "best choice" from the Matua-dominated Ranaghat (SC) constituency in the Lok Sabha polls. In the 2019 polls, Trinamul lost the seat to BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar.

A Trinamul leader in Nadia said it would be wise to nominate a young, popular doctor and Matua leader like Adhikari to woo the Matuas in Ranaghat "disgruntled" with the BJP, particularly after the saffron party's "fake" citizenship promise.

On Thursday, Adhikari walked with Trinamul's all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at a rally in Calcutta on the eve of International Women's Day. A resident of Nadia's Krishnaganj, Adhikari took the party flag at an event in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

In 2019, Adhikari, then with the Ranaghat subdivisional hospital, was announced as the BJP candidate but failed to contest as the state delayed approving his resignation.

In 2021, he won the Assembly poll as a BJP candidate from Ranaghat South seat defeating Trinamul’s Barnali De Roy. His close aides claimed he was repeatedly assured by the BJP central leadership that he would be nominated for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, but Jagannath Sarkar's re-nomination angered him.

Refusing to comment on it, Adhikari said: “I joined Trinamul to ensure justice for Nadia's people."