BJP's West Bengal MP Arjun Singh returns to Trinamool Congress

BJP’s Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Sunday evening in yet another blow to the saffron party ahead of panchayat elections in the state due early next year.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee handed over the TMC flag to Singh, who is also the BJP state vice president, to welcome him back to the party.

Singh had left the TMC ahead of 2019 parliamentary elections after being denied a Lok Sabha ticket.

The TMC lost the seat to Singh in the parliamentary elections. But in the 2021 assembly elections he had failed to secure victory for BJP candidates in seven of the eight assembly seats that fall under his Barrackpore parliamentary constituency.

“I have returned to the party with which I had been associated since its inception in 1998. But due to some misunderstanding I had quit the party and contested and won parliamentary elections under the BJP’s banner,” Singh told a press conference immediately after joining the TMC at Abhishek Banerjee’s Camack Street office in Kolkata.

Singh claimed that he has returned to the TMC to fight for the state’s jute workers who have been allegedly suffering due to the policies of the BJP-led government at the Centre.

He also took a dig at the BJP’s organizational functioning in the state. “The BJP exists in Bengal only on Facebook and social media,” he alleged.

Also read: In fight against BJP, Trinamool pitches itself as face of Opposition

Since the BJP’s electoral defeat in the 2021 assembly elections, there has been an exodus from the party to the TMC.

Former Union minister for state and BJP MP Babul Supriyo and about a half dozen party MLAs, including Mukul Roy, had earlier switched over to the TMC

Singh’s homecoming was however not without hiccups as there had been strong opposition to his return from the TMC’s North 24 Parganas district unit.

The district witnessed a series of political clashes between the BJP and the TMC in Barrackpore parliamentary constituency areas of the district after Singh had joined the saffron party.

To make a patch up with Singh and TMC leaders of the district, Abhishek chaired over an hour-long coordination meeting before admitting the BJP MP into the party fold.

They all emerged smiling from the meeting and posed for cameras but it is to be seen whether there will be real reconciliation among them or Singh’s joining the TMC will trigger intra-party clashes in the area.