Five Trinamool leaders including former state minister Rajib Banerjee, MLAs Prabir Ghosal and Baishali Dalmiya and former Howrah Mayor Rathin Chakraborty joined the BJP on 30 January, Saturday after a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
PTI quoted BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya as saying, “They have joined the BJP.”
The five TMC leaders were accompanied by former TMC MLA Parthasarathi Chattopadhyay, actor Rudranil Ghosh and BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy to the meeting.
Shah, who was scheduled to be in Kolkata for the weekend to take part in a rally at Howrah, had to cancel his visit where five former Trinamool leaders were supposed to join his party.
Former Forest Minister of West Bengal, Rajib Banerjee, who resigned from Trinamool Congress on Friday, told NDTV that Shah called him and said that he would like to handover the flag to him.
“He is sending down a chartered plane to fly me to the capital," Banerjee was quoted as saying.
Trinamool MLA from Bali, Baishali Dalmiya, former MLA and five-term civic chief of Ranaghat Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, Howrah mayor Rathin Chakraborty, Uttarpara MLA Prabir Ghoshal are also flying to New Delhi along with Banerjee.
As per NDTV, Shah will virtually join the Sunday's mega BJP rally at Dumurjala in Howrah, which will take place as scheduled. Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani will participate in the rally and will be accompanied by other state leaders along with the new entrants.
A poll strategy meeting was held by the Trinamool on Friday, 29 January, where they took a decision to focus on campaigning instead of the exodus of party leaders.
(With inputs from NDTV)
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