Even as political crises continue in Karnataka and Goa, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is firing from a third front as well – West Bengal.
On Saturday, BJP leader Mukul Roy, who himself had jumped ship from the Trinamool Congress in late 2017, made a bold claim. According to Roy, 107 MLAs in West Bengal will desert the CPM, Congress and TMC to soon join the BJP.
107 West Bengal MLAs from CPM, Congress and TMC will join BJP. We have their list prepared and they are in contact with us.Mukul Roy, BJP Leader
Interestingly, Roy’s statement comes a few weeks after he had said the BJP would not make a move to overthrow the TMC government in the state before the 2021 Assembly polls.
The West Bengal Assembly has 294 elected MLAs. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the TMC had won 211 seats, while the BJP was victorious in only 3. The Congress had won 44 seats and the Left had secured 32 constituencies.
A lot has changed since then though, with the BJP winning 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019 and emerging as the primary challenger to Mamata Banerjee’s TMC.
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