The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal was forced to helplessly spectate on Saturday as five of its leaders jumped ship to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Among those who embraced the saffron fold was State Minister Rajib Banerjee, who only recently resigned from the post, and subsequently gave up on the primary membership of the TMC. The induction of the said leaders was said to be held at a rally in Howrah which would be addressed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. However, a last-minute change of plans necessitated for the leaders to be flown to Delhi instead.
A minor blast outside the Israeli embassy on Friday got security agencies and the MHA right up on their feet, which is why on Saturday – the Union Home Minister held important meetings to take stock of the situation. This forced Shah to call off his Bengal visit. While the TMC might have thought that this would serve as a window of opportunity for it to placate the disenchanted rebels, the Amit Shah was quick to send a chartered flight to Bengal to pick up the five leaders and fly them to the national capital.
“Mr Amit Shah called me up and said he would like to handover the flag to me himself, so he is sending down a chartered plane to fly me to the capital,” said Rajib Banerjee, former Forest Minister of West Bengal. The other four rebels which were accompanied by Rajib Banerjee to Delhi were Trinamool MLA from Bali, Baishali Dalmiya, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghoshal, Howrah mayor Rathin Chakraborty, and former MLA and five-term civic chief of Ranaghat Partha Sarathi Chatterjee.
Former TMC leaders Mr. Rajib Banerjee, Ms. Baishali Dalmiya, Mr. Prabir Ghoshal, Mr. Rathin Chakraborti and Mr. Rudranil Ghosh joined BJP today in New Delhi. I am sure their induction will further strengthen BJP’s fight for Sonar Bangla. pic.twitter.com/twXrHXWCbY
— Amit Shah (Modi Ka Parivar) (@AmitShah) January 30, 2021
Rajib Banerjee had skipped five consecutive meetings of the Mamata cabinet and more than a dozen party programmes since September last year when he started voicing his dissent against a section of the leadership in Howrah. After Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari and Minister of State for Sports Laxmi Ratan Shukla’s resignation from TMC, Rajib is the third high-profile minister to sever ties with Mamata Banerjee.
Read more: Second round of TMC EXIT has officially begun with the resignation of TMC minister Rajib Banerjee
Sources suggest that due to tremendous traffic of TMC leaders queuing up to join the BJP, the saffron party has frozen its induction programme temporarily. This in itself speaks volumes about the poll prospects of the TMC. If party insiders from the TMC are themselves lining up to join the BJP to an extent that the latter is forced to stop the induction process momentarily due to a saturation of sorts being reached within its ranks, it is indicative of the fact that Mamata Banerjee does not stand a chance in the upcoming elections.