Counting underway for Bengal’s 6 Assembly seats, Trinamool leads in three
Counting is underway for bypolls to six Assembly constituencies in West Bengal. As per the early trends, Trinamool Congress led three of the six Assembly constituencies.
BJP MLA of Raiganj in North Dinajpur district Krishna Kalyani finally joined the Trinamul Congress today. The state secretary of the TMC as well as the state industry minister, Partha Chattapadhaya, handed Mr Kalyani the TMC flag amid a programme held in Kolkata.
The TMC had won seven seats– Chopra, Islampur, Karandighi, Chakulia, Goalpokhar, Hemtabad and Itahar– in the last Assembly elections, while the BJP won two seats–Kaliyaganj and Raiganj–out of the total nine seats in the district.
Earlier, the BJP MLA of Kaliyaganj, Soumen Roy, also joined the TMC. Following today’s development, the BJP does not have a single MLA in North Dinajpur. An industrialist, Mr Kalyani had won the Assembly election on a BJP ticket. However, ever since the win, he started having problems with the BJP leadership in the district.
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He then remained aloof from the party and party activities for around a month, until he recently announced that he was severing ties with the saffron party. “I had no scope for work in the BJP. As such, I decided to join the TMC to work for the people,” Mr Kalyani said after the joining event today.
The BJP in North Dinajpur, on the other hand, said that Mr Kalyani was an opportunist and that he switched sides to the TMC for his vested interests and personal gains.
“Krishna Kalyani was an industrialist. He had left our party around a month ago, and he joined the TMC for his personal benefit. He had joined our party from the TMC and he went back. We are not giving him importance in politics,” the Secretary of the North Dinajpur BJP committee, Pradip Sarkar, said.
The President of the North Dinajpur TMC committee, Kanaiyalal Agarwal, said Mr Kalyani’s joining the party will strengthen the TMC in the district.
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