In a serious embarrassment to the opposition CPM its sitting MLA from Kailasahar Mobasswar Ali joined BJP on Friday evening in New Delhi. Along with Ali also returned to BJP Subal Bhoumik who had till recently the TMC state president.
This is for the first time in CPM’s history that a sitting MLA and an influential leader, that too from minority community, changed the colour from Red to Saffron.
Ali went to New Delhi and discussed his joining to the Saffron brigade and the BJP leaders who had already been there to finalize the candidate list, did not waster time and in a programme attended by In-charge North East Dr Sambit Patra organized the joining in ceremony.
Ali was seriously upset as the CPM sacrificed him for the sake of Congress. The CPM dropped the sitting MLA this time and left the seat open for Congress candidate, in all probability TPCC president Birajit Sinha. There were always serious resentment among the CPM workers who felt the alliance with Congress was forged at the instance and behest of some top leaders without taking into consideration the sentiment and aspiration of the grassroot level cadres. Dropping of Ali only added fuel to the fire.
While following the alliance already several local level CPM and Congress supporters were leaving their respective parties to join the BJP, Ali’s joining to BJP was likely to hasten the erosion further.
Subal Bhoumik’s joining, or rather, returning to BJP, was being speculated for quite some time as he was unceremoniously squeezed out from the TMC’s president’s post in Tripura. The TMC leaders from West Bengal, however, did not clarify as to why Bhoumik was ousted from the position.
Bhoumik had already changed parties six times, and this time was his seventh time. He was with the Congress, BJP, Trinamool Congress and at a point of time he had floated his own party Tripura Grameen Congress also. For the last six months after his ouster from the TMC president’s post Bhoumik had been trying to join BJP, but the state leaders were not really interested to take him back due to his restive political nature. However, at last the central leaders felt it prudent to use Bhoumik’s organizational ability before the ensuing elections and arranged his joining.
