KOLKATA: The BJP’s West Bengal unit has decided to welcome Trinamool Congress councillors, who are likely to shift their political allegiance after being denied tickets in forthcoming civic polls.
The saffron camp will also consider their candidature if they are found to be potential winners.
Bengal BJP is expecting a large-scale exodus from the TMC once the ruling party announces its list of candidates to contest the municipal election.
“Because of the ruling party’s internal conflicts and other issues, we expect many sitting councillors will be axed from the electoral battlefield this time by their high-command. Once these elected representatives will be denied tickets, they will have no option left other than joining the BJP to be alive in Bengal’s political battlefield,” said a senior BJP leader.
The saffron camp is struggling to select candidates to be fielded in the upcoming civic polls in areas where the party’s organisational strength is poor.
“We cannot deny the fact that that our party’s organisational strength in Kolkata is not good enough to challenge the TMC in civic polls. There are many pockets in south Bengal districts, where finding candidates who are politically sound enough to contest an election, has become a challenge,” said the leader.
Waiting for the TMC to release its list of candidates, another BJP leader in Bengal said, “Those who will be denied tickets by TMC high-command, we may found some of them have potentials to win. If they join our party, we will use them as our soldiers in the electoral battlefield. Ahead of the crucial 2021 Assembly elections, we need to maintain the pace that we achieved in the Lok Sabha polls and form board in a number of considerable municipalities instead of winning some seats only.” Earlier, Bengal BJP’s many prominent faces have told their leadership that they were not keen to contest the civic poll.
Trinamool announces candidates for Rajya Sabha polls
The Trinamool Congress announced four names, including two women, as the party’s nominees in the Rajya Sabha elections for five seats in the state. Bengal’s ruling party decided to send its four former MPs in the Upper House of the Parliament.
Announcing the decision on Twitter, Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee wrote, “I am glad to announce that @AITCofficial will be nominating Arpita Ghosh, Mausam Noor, Dinesh Trivedi & Subrata Bakshi to the Rajya Sabha. As a part of my constant endeavour towards women empowerment, I am proud that half of our nominees are women.”
The seats are falling vacant with the end of the tenures of painter Jogen Chowdhury, former bureaucrat Manish Gupta, industrialist KD Singh and newspaper editor Ahmed Hassan Imran on April 2.