In a shocking claim, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has said on Monday that Suvendu Adhikari enjoyed a secret tie-up with West Bengal Congres chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
The TMC leadership in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district alleged that ever since Adhikari had started expressing his disenchantment with TMC, Chowdhury took a soft stance against him.
“Earlier he [Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury] would call him names such as iron mafia of Midnapore. But now they have a secret tie-up between themselves,” said TMC’s district secretary in Murshidabad.
However, both Congres and BJP have outrightly dismissed the Mamata Banerjee-led party’s accusation, saying that the TMC-tunrcoat and the opposition leader in Lok Sabha never had any behind-the-door understanding.
Interestingly, this remark from TMC’s Murshidabad leadership comes days after Adhikari led a huge party contingent to switch loyalty and join BJP.
Even though the Midnapore belt is considered as his political bastion, Adhikari had also served as TMC’s convener in Murshidabad and possess a sound knowledge about the political state of affairs in the district.
Bringing an end to the long-running speculations looming over his political career, Adhikari took up the saffron flag from Amit Shah at a mega rally in Midnapore last week.
Adhikari, the former Minister of Transport, Irrigation and Water resource in Government of West Bengal, took along a total of more than 40 TMC leaders to the BJP.
Nine MLAs – six from TMC, one from CPIM, one from CPI and one from Congress – joined BJP on Saturday. One sitting and a former TMC MP also defected to the Hindutva camp.
“I am being called a traitor by those who themselves (TMC) are traitors. Had the BJP not been there, TMC would have never come into existence. In the next assembly polls, BJP will win Bengal and TMC will be defeated,” he said.