‘41 MLAs Want to Join BJP in West Bengal’: Kailash Vijayvargiya

“If I take these legislators in the BJP’s fold, the Mamata government will fall,” says the BJP leader.

Kailash Vijaywargiya, of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

(Photo: Twitter/ Kailash Vijayvargiya)

Ahead of the West Bengal Assembly Elections this year, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on Thursday, 14 January, claimed that he has a list of 41 MLAs who are willing to defect to BJP from Trinamool Congress party (TMC).

“I have a list of 41 MLAs who want to join the BJP. If I take these legislators in the BJP’s fold, the Mamata Banerjee government will fall. But we are looking at who should be admitted in the party and who should not be. We have decided that among these legislators, we will not take those whose image is not good,” said the BJP leader to PTI.

Alleging that the CM is trying to take credit for the COVID-19 vaccination programme, Vijayvargiya told PTI that Banerjee has been claiming her government is inoculating the state for free, whereas he asserts it is the BJP-led Union government that is bearing the expenses of Phase one.

West Bengal has seen violence and clashes between party members, which the BJP leader claims is ‘politics of violence’ and ‘infiltrators attacking BJP cadres’. He told PTI, "They (infiltrators) feel that if the BJP comes to power in the state, then it will identify them and they will not be able to continue their illegal activities”.

(With inputs from PTI)