Trinamul Congress MLA and former mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Sabyasachi Dutta today announced that he had decided to quit the Trinamul and join the BJP tomorrow as the Trinamul “has become a family enterprise.” “I will join the BJP tomorrow at party president and Union home minister Amit Shah’s programme at Netaji Indoor Stadium. The TMC is no longer a party of the masses. It has become a family enterprise. The people have already rejected it, ” Dutta told the media.

Shah is scheduled to address a seminar on National Register of Citizens and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill at Netaji Indoor Stadium here. The Trinamul MLA from Rajarhat-New Town, who had been seen with BJP leader Mukul Roy over the past few months, had resigned from the post of mayor of BMC in July. Since the recent Lok Sabha poll results, seven Trinamul MLAs and two Congress and CPI(M) MLAs have joined the BJP. Reacting to the development, Trinamul secretary general Partha Chatterjee said the party was not at all bothered about Dutta’s proposed switch over to the saffron party.

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“We have no relation with Dutta for the past several months. It hardly bothers us,” He said. Dutta incurred the wrath of the ruling party after he had participated in an agitation against state power department and slammed the Mamata Banerjee-government for not fulfilling the employees’ demands for increasing their salaries. The party leadership was also annoyed with Dutta over his meetings with Mukul Roy, senior BJP leader and once the lieutenant of the Trinamul chief Mukul Roy. Dutta had, however, said that Roy visited him as an elder brother.

However, Trinamul leadership had fielded the state urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim to convince Dutta not to quit the party, but the effort was not successful. After resigning from the post of the BMC mayor Dutta even invited several BJP leaders, including state president Dilip Ghosh, Roy, and the BJP Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya, to join Ganesh puja festival in his own municipal ward at Salt Lake.

Ghosh while reacting to Dutta’s joining the BJP told reporters : “We have been hearing for so many days that he will join our party. It will be important for us and him as well, if he joins tomorrow at the big event.” It was learnt Dutta will participate in a procession of the party that will head towards the stadium where Shah will speak on National Register of Citizens (NRC) first and then hold meetings with party leaders and activists.