5 ex-TMC leaders join BJP in Amit Shah's residence ahead of Bengal polls

 

KOLKATA: As many as five former Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Saturday after being flown in to join the BJP West Bengal's ruling party ahead of the state elections due in April-May.

 

 

Initially, the Union Home Minister Shah was to spend the weekend in Kolkata and participate in a rally at Howrah on Sunday where the five politicians were supposed to join his party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, he had to cancel his visit at the last moment. Thereafter, a plan to have the MLAs flown to Delhi was chalked out.

 

 

The TMC leaders met Shah at his home in Delhi along with BJP's lieutenants for the Bengal fight Mukul Roy and Kailash Vijayvargiya who announced that they had joined the BJP.

 

 

Rajib Banerjee, a former Forest Minister of West Bengal, who resigned from Trinamool recently, said that Shah called him up and said he would like to handover the flag to him. "So, he is sending down a chartered plane to fly me to the capital," he said.

 

 

Others who left Kolkata by the 4 pm flight are Trinamool MLA from Bali, Baishali Dalmiya, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghoshal, Howrah mayor Rathin Chakraborty, and former MLA and five-term civic chief of Ranaghat Partha Sarathi Chatterjee.