Arindam Bhattacharya, who had won the 2016 Assembly polls as a Left-backed Congress candidate and later switched over to the Trinamul Congress, joined the BJP on Wednesday.

The MLA of Santipur in Nadia switched to the new party in the presence of the BJP’s Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya at the national headquarters in New Delhi.

Justifying the reason behind his defection, Bhattacharya said: “There was no freedom to work (in Trinamul). I had a plan, a vision to work for development and betterment for people of my constituency and the state as a whole. But unfortunately, the ruling party has no vision, no future planning…the state has become synonymous with corruption.”

“I eventually changed my mind to leave Trinamul to restore the lost pride of Bengal,” Bhattacharya added while speaking to media persons in Delhi.

Bhattacharya had won the Santipur seat defeating Ajoy De of Trinamul in 2016 but defected to the ruling party in 2017. His defection triggered a major internal bickering in Trinamul. There were regular incidents of clashes between Bhattacharya’s supporters and those aligned to De, forcing Trinamul’s top leadership to intervene on a number of occasions.

Trinamul leaders said Bhattacharya joining the BJP would have little impact on their organisation in Nadia. Trinamul MP and the party’s Nadia district president Mahua Moitra refused to comment on the issue. “My best wishes for him,” she told The Telegraph.

Reacting to Bhattacharya’s induction, BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar said: “I have no comment to offer since the decision to take him has been taken by the party’s top leadership”.

Bhattacharya’s defection comes a day after chief minister Mamata Banerjee told a rally in Purulia on Tuesday that anybody could leave the party, but she would not bow the head before the BJP.