Bengal BJP Bars Entry for TMC Leaders

New Delhi: Amidst rumours that several senior TMC leaders are seeking to join the BJP after its mammoth victory in the recently concluded West Bengal polls, the state unit saffron cadre has firmly asked the party's top brass not to induct anyone from the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

Speculation is rife in Kolkata that some senior TMC leaders, including a few MPs and MLAs, and some prominent people from various fields associated with the TMC are desperately trying to join the BJP. However, the BJP state leadership has made it clear to the party's central leadership that any such move will only lead to dissent and protest by the party's Bengal karyakartas. Ever since the TMC lost the poll, it has been facing internal turmoil and factionalism.

Exposing the rift within, TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar had, on May 28, written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla accusing her party colleague Kalyan Banerjee of "verbally abusing" her inside Parliament and alleging misogynistic behaviour towards women MPs. A prominent Bengali actor, who had campaigned for the TMC, publicly distanced himself from the Mamata Banerjee-led outfit after the poll results. Besides, at least five TMC Rajya Sabha MPs, according to rumours, want to switch camp and join the BJP.

Soon after the poll results were out, the BJP high command had made it clear that no TMC worker will be inducted and had assured its Bengal workers that the party maintains a databank of its own cadre after complaints that the TMC workers were misusing BJP flags. But now, even senior TMC leaders and some "celebrities" have been sending feelers to the BJP leaders, or so claim BJP insiders.

Sources said the BJP state in-charge and national general secretary Sunil Bansal has been receiving "appeals" from the party's Bengal unit workers and supporters against inducting anyone from the TMC. Some of them have even gone public and have posted their appeals on social media.

The BJP had blamed the TMC for unleashing political violence against its workers when the Mamata Banerjee-led government was in power. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on several occasions highlighted the issue and hailed the BJP karyakartas for doing their work despite facing hardship due to political violence unleashed by the TMC government in the state.

Given the fact that the BJP leadership had to face anger when it inducted several TMC leaders ahead of the 2021 polls, the saffron party, ahead of the recently concluded elections, had said that it wouldn't allow the entry of any leader from the Mamata Banerjee-led party. But after the BJP bagged a thumping majority, several TMC leaders want to join the party.

"After the poll results, several TMC leaders want to join the BJP. But we all know that all they want to do is side with the BJP just to save themselves. None of them were there when the TMC was arresting our workers or killing our cadre... If the BJP inducts anyone now, it will be a betrayal of our trust in the leadership and our faith in the organisation," said a state BJP leader.

The Bengal BJP leaders assert that there is no compulsion to induct leaders from the TMC. "We don't need any TMC leader to win elections. We have won a huge majority on our own," they claim.