Almost 20 months after he severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to join the Trinamool Congress, Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh returned to the BJP on Friday. Dibyendu Adhikari, the Trinamool Congress MP from Tamluk in West Bengal and brother of Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, also joined the BJP with Mr. Singh in New Delhi, in the presence of BJP leaders Amit Malviya and Dushyant Gautam.
While Mr. Singh’s return to the BJP was triggered by the Trinamool Congress denying him a ticket from Barrackpore and fielding West Bengal Minister Partha Bhowmick from the seat, Mr. Singh chose to rake up the law and order situation and the Sandeshkhali unrest to justify his return to the BJP.
“I had [earlier] distanced myself from the party (BJP) in the interest of my supporters who were at the receiving end of the violence after the post-poll violence in 2021,” Mr. Singh said. But, he said, he had found that the the Trinamool Congress was indifferent to the suffering of the people and only wanted to continue its regime using the help of the administration and “goons”.
The development at Barrackpore, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, is similar to what had occurred ahead of General Election in 2019. Then too, after being denied a ticket by the Trinamool Congress, Mr. Singh had joined the BJP and had represented the saffron party in the contest.
He returned to the Trinamool Congress in May 2022. The Barrackpore MP, who had defeated Trinamool Congress candidate Dinesh Trivedi in 2019 by a margin of about 13,000 votes, expressed his desire to contest the polls this year from the same seat on a BJP ticket.
The Trinamool Congress leadership exhorted BJP supporters not to vote for Arjun Singh if he is fielded by the saffron party. “Do not vote for someone rejected by the Trinamool Congress. Instead vote for the Trinamool Congress,” Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said.
With political temperatures soaring over the switching of sides at Barrackpore, there are apprehensions of political violence in the subdivision in North 24 Parganas. The region had witnessed communal and electoral violence between 2019 and 2021, resulting in several deaths.
Dibyendu Adhikari, who has represented the Tamluk constituency for the past 10 years, also raised the issue of Sandeshkhali to target his former party.
The BJP has fielded Soumendu Adhikari, another brother of Suvendu Adhikari, from the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat.
