The Trinamul Congress has received a fillip in Siliguri and Cooch Behar ahead of civic elections when five councillors have joined the ruling party.

One of the councillors is Parimal Mitra who had represented the CPM at the Siliguri Municipal Corporation fore decades. He had been expelled from the CPM last week.

The other four — two of the Left Front an the rest Independents — are councillors at the Cooch Behar municipality.

Mitra joined Trinamul on Sunday in the presence of state tourism minister Gautam Deb. “He (Mitra) had been with the CPM and its frontal organisations for the past 45 years. But he wanted to work with Trinamul under the leadership of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. As the civic body elections are ahead, I would soon hold a meeting with district Trinamul leaders of Siliguri to boost our support base in all 47 wards of the SMC,” Deb said after handing over a Trinamul flag to Mitra.

Hundreds of Mitra’s followers were present.

Mitra, who was also the member, mayor-in-council (MMIC) of slum development department at the current Left Front board, said he had switched the party to serve his voters. “I had resigned from all the posts in the CPM. I had also quit the post of the MMIC. I felt it necessary to join Trinamul as it would help me serve people of my ward in a better manner,” the senior councillor said.

In Cooch Behar, Ramapati Gupta Choudhury and Tapan Ghosh joined Trinamul on Saturday. Last year, they had been expelled from the CPM and the All India Forward Bloc, respectively, for alleged anti-party activities.

Also, Gautam Barua and Shampa Roy, both Independent councillors, joined Trinamul.

“It is a major boost for us. We are confident of retaining the civic body in Cooch Behar,” said north Bengal development minister Rabindranath Ghosh.