West Bengal: MLA Krishna Kalyani jumps ship to TMC; 5th legislator to quit BJP since polls

In another blow to BJP in West Bengal, Raiganj MLA Krishna Kalyani joined TMC in the presence of state Commerce Minister Partha Chatterjee on Wednesday. Having served as the North Dinajpur district president of TMC, he had switched allegiance to BJP in January this year. Thereafter, he defeated the TMC candidate from Raiganj in the WB Assembly election with a margin of 20,748 votes. On October 1, Kalyani resigned from BJP after receiving a showcause notice for speaking against WB state president Sukanta Majumdar and ex-Union Minister Debasree Chaudhuri. 

Krishna Kalyani was quoted as saying by PTI, "I was increasingly thinking that I cannot be a part of BJP anymore. If I had not spoken in favour of Mamata Banerjee's welfare policies before the assembly polls, I had made a mistake that I want to correct now". He also alleged that it is not possible for an MLA to do constructive work in the saffron party. 

The exodus of BJP MLAs in West Bengal

On May 2, TMC sprung a surprise by decisively winning the West Bengal Assembly election by bagging 213 seats whereas BJP could win in only 77 constituencies. Speculation about Mukul Roy's political future started doing the rounds after Nandigram MLA Suvendu Adhikari pipped him to the Leader of the Opposition's post. While the then BJP national vice-president won the Krishnanagar Uttar seat in Nadia district, his son Subhrangshu who joined the party in May 2019 was defeated from the Bijpur seat from where he was the incumbent MLA. Finally, Roy and his son rejoined TMC in the presence of CM Mamata Banerjee and her nephew on June 11.

After a brief lull, Tanmoy Ghosh who won in Bishnupur on a BJP ticket switched allegiance to TMC on August 30. Biswajit Das and Soumen Roy, the sitting BJP legislators from Bagda and Kaliaganj respectively followed suit. As Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanik chose to retain their Lok Sabha seats despite winning the Assembly polls, BJP's strength has now reduced to 70 seats. Addressing a public rally recently, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee claimed that BJP will be wiped out from West Bengal the day when his party opens its doors to all leaders willing to jump ship.