TMC turncoat Rajib Banerjee skips key BJP meet; assails party's criticism of Mamata govt

In more trouble for BJP in West Bengal, TMC turncoat Rajib Banerjee on Tuesday openly opposed the saffron party's stance vis-à-vis the Mamata Banerjee-led government. Resigning from TMC on January 29 after quitting as a Minister and MLA, he joined BJP two days later in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. However, he lost to TMC's Kalyan Ghosh from Domjur in the recently concluded Assembly polls with a margin of over 42,000 votes.

Writing a Twitter post titled 'There has been enough criticism', he said, "People will not take kindly to it if, for the sake opposing a government elected with huge popular support, threats of Delhi and Article 356 (President's rule) are used at the drop of a hat". He added, "We should rise above politics and stand by the people of Bengal, who have been devastated by COVID and Yaas". This was seen as a reference to BJP's demand for the imposition of President's Rule in the state over the post-poll violence in the state that claimed at least 15 lives. 

Moreover, both Rajib Banerjee and BJP national vice president Mukul Roy skipped an important organizational meeting of BJP held on Tuesday. Multiple issues including the party agenda for the upcoming months and the post-poll violence was extensively discussed in the meeting. The absence of the aforesaid leaders has set rumour mills abuzz as many other TMC-turned-BJP leaders including Sonali Guha, Sarala Murmu and Dipendu Biswas have expressed a desire to rejoin the Mamata Banerjee-led party after the election results. 

TMC sweeps WB Assembly election

After a hard-fought election campaign, TMC sprung a surprise by decisively winning the West Bengal election by bagging 213 seats whereas BJP could win in only 77 constituencies. The voter turnout for the seats that went to the polls in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth phases was 84.63 per cent, 86.11 per cent, 84.61 per cent, 79.90 per cent, 82.49 per cent, 79.11 per cent, 76.90 per cent and 78.32 per cent respectively. While the JP Nadda-led party won 74 more seats than the previous election, its vote share of 38.13% could not pose a challenge to TMC which garnered a vote share of 47.94%.

While the ruling party bettered its performance compared to 2016, it suffered a minor blip as WB CM Mamata Banerjee lost from Nandigram to her BJP opponent Suvendu Adhikari. However, barring the Nandigram MLA, most other TMC leaders who had switched over to BJP prior to the election could not win their seats. Even ex-nominated Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, Union Minister Babul Supriyo and BJP Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee had to face defeat. On the other hand, the Left-Congress-ISF alliance was routed failing to win even a single seat in the polls.