Trinamool Congress leader Suvendu Adhikari has tendered his resignation from the membership of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, news agency ANI reported on Wednesday, 16 December.
The TMC leader and former state transport and irrigation minister arrived at the Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday amid reports that he is likely to join the BJP during Union Home Minister's proposed visit to Bengal this week.
“It was bound to happen. Many MLAs left the TMC earlier too and joined our party. There’s no democracy or respect for people in the TMC. Those who want to join in the change in Bengal and contribute to its development are leaving TMC and joining us,” BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh was quoted as saying by news agency IANS.
According to ANI, reacting to the development, BJP Vice President Mukul Roy said, “The day Suvendu Adhikari had resigned from the ministerial post, I had told I will be happy if he leaves the TMC and we will welcome him.”
Roy, who had jumped ship from Trinamool Congress and joined BJP, added, “Today he has resigned from the membership of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and I welcome his decision. Trinamool Congress is collapsing like a house of cards. Everyday someone from the party comes to us to join our party.”
Suvendu Writes to Governor Dhankar
On 16 December, Adhikari also wrote Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar seeking his intervention “so that the police and the administration apparatuses in the state is dissuaded” from implicating him and his associations in criminal cases “out of political motivation and vendetta.”
In the letter signed by Adhikari, he claims that his resignation as minister in the state cabinet has spurred “those in authority to be in political a vendetta mode” against him.
“Surely ‘political bonhomie’ with the ruling or dispensation cannot be an essential requisite for enjoying liberty and human rights, as is the situation presently.”Suvendu Adhikary in his letter to governor Jagdeep Dhankar
What Happened Earlier?
Adhikari had tendered his resignation as minister from the Mamata Banerjee-led state Cabinet on 27 November. He had also left the chairperson’s post of the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners (HRBC) two days before that.
Sources cited by IANS said that Adhikari was unhappy with organisational decisions taken by Abhishek Banerjee and political strategist Prashant Kishor. Adhikari and Banerjee were even seen taking potshots indirectly at each other, without taking names at recent public meetings.
Meanwhile, BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy said that the incumbent Trinamool Congress would not be able to bag 100 Assembly seats in the coming elections.
“As far as I understand politics, Trinamool will not even secure 100 Assembly seats in the elections,” he told reporters after a party meeting in Nadia.
(With inputs from IANS and ANI.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)