The continuing trend of elected public representatives of the BJP in West Bengal shifting to the ruling Trinamool Congress has left the party's central leadership worried.
A day after BJP legislator from Alipurduar Suman Kanjilal joined the state's ruling party, the BJP's central leadership is understood to have sought a detailed report from the state leadership on this count.
Party insiders said that at a time when the central leadership of the party is trying all possible ways to reorganise the organisational structure of the party in the state, Kanjilal's shift to the Trinamool has come as a major jolt.
Sources said that the central leadership has asked the state leadership on why they are unable to keep the existing strength in the Assembly intact despite the fact that the state's ruling party is facing multi-angle odds in the present moment. The central leadership has also asked the state leadership on what would be their specific strategy to arrest similar exodus in the coming days.
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Kanjilal is the sixth elected BJP legislator to join the Trinamool since the 2021 Assembly polls. However, unlike the other five turncoat MLAs, Kanjilal did not have any prior record of association with Trinamool and he directly joined BJP by quitting his profession as a journalist.
"This factor seems to have left the central leadership even more worried that the state's ruling party is now even poaching among the dyed-in-the-wool party loyalists," said a state leader who refused to be named.
On Monday, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari launched a scathing attack against Kanjilal and described the latter as betrayer to the voters of Alipurduar assembly constituency who elected him as an MLA. "I would be soon going to Alipurduar and meet the voters, who had been duped by Suman Kanjilal and that too at a time when the state leadership of BJP are trying hard to organise a movement against the misrule of Trinamool Congress in the state," Adhikari said.
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Ridiculing him, Trinamool General Secretary and spokesman Kunal Ghosh said that before making such comments Adhikari should remind this theory of anti-defection to his father and brothers. Incidentally, Suvendu Adhikari's father Sishir Kumar Adhikari and younger brother Dibyendu Adhikari are both Trinamool MPs.
