Team News Riveting
Kolkata, October 1
The BJP MLA from Raigunj in West Bengal Krishna Kalyani on Friday quit the party to join the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC).
With the switching over of Kalyani, the tally of defectors from the BJP to TMC had gone to five in the state Assembly. The move came at a time both the ruling and opposition parties are entangled in a legal battle on implementing the anti-defection law in Bengal.
Kalyani is also among other “imported” leaders in the BJP known for changing parties and making careers out of jumping political ships in Bengal.
Son of a former Congress leader close to the late PCC president Somen Mitra, Kalyani was among the two MLAs elected from North Dinajpur on a BJP ticket. Both have now defected to the TMC.
The BJP state unit had served a show-cause notice on Kalyani for continuously attacking the district leadership and Raigunj MP Debashree Chowdhury.
“The party has an internal discipline. He would not follow any rules. Sometimes he would speak against the district leadership, sometimes against the national vice president Dilip Ghosh (who was till recently the state president of the BJP). He was show-caused. Instead of replying to it, he has fled from the party,” said leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikary, welcoming Kalyani’s decision to quit.
Adhikary who has filed a petition in the Calcutta high court seeking disqualification of Mukul Roy. The case would come up for hearing on October 7.
