Eight of the 16 councillors of Halishahar municipality who had joined the BJP in New Delhi on May 28 returned to the Trinamul Congress on Tuesday, restoring the control of the civic body to the ruling party of Bengal.

Municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim paraded the eight councillors at a news conference on the premises of the Assembly building and claimed that they had been “terrorised” into defecting to the BJP and returned to Trinamul out of their “love” for Mamata Banerjee.

“They were dragged into the BJP at gunpoint. They got sick of the party and returned because their hearts brim with love for our supreme leader,” said Hakim, pointing at Halishahar municipal chairman Anshuman Roy, who was among the eight councillors.

In the 23-member civic body, one seat is vacant following the death of a Trinamul councillor. The BJP had one councillor till May 27 and the remaining 21 were with Trinamul. On May 28, 16 Trinamul councillors defected to the BJP in New Delhi, taking the BJP strength to 17 councillors.

With the return of eight councillors, Trinamul’s tally has reached 13 and it again got control of the civic body.

The BJP was caught off guard by the development and vowed to move a no-confidence motion and prove its majority in the civic body. “From what we have heard, we understand some went back . But we still have the majority,” said the BJP’s Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh. “If, there is a no-confidence motion tomorrow, we will win it.”

While inducting the 16 councillors, the BJP had claimed on May 28 that it was the start of a seven-phase defection from Trinamul and it would culminate in the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government.