KOLKATA: Five Trinamool Congress (TMC) turncoats who joined the BJP ahead of the recent Assembly elections have snapped all contacts with the saffron camp, a BJP functionary said on Monday.
“Since the elections results were announced, five former TMC MLAs, whom the BJP had fielded, but could not win, have snapped all contacts with the party. We tried to contact them, but we couldn’t. They are not reachable on the contact numbers available with the party,” said the functionary in Kolkata.
Another functionary said many others are maintaining a distance from the party since the election results came out.
“They may quit the BJP in the near future. It seems they are in touch with the TMC, but the ruling party has not yet decided its stand on those who are willing to come back,” he said.
Before the Assembly elections, 33 turncoat MLAs—most of them from the TMC—joined the BJP. The saffron camp fielded 18 of them. But, only five managed to win a seat.
The five MLAs are former minister Rajib Banerjee, Sabyasachi Dutta, Prabir Ghoshal, Wilson Champramary, and Shukra Munda.
Five other TMC turncoats, who had earlier joined the BJP, had also left the saffron camp.They are Sovan Chatterjee, Sonali Guha, Dipendu Biswas, Amal Acharya and Bachhu Hansda.
Meanwhile, TMC MP and spokesperson Saugata Roy said a final decision on whether to accept returning turncoats will be made by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The exodus from the Trinamool Congress to the BJP began after the latter made deep inroads into the former’s turf in 2019 by winning 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.