Two BJP MPs, Jagannath Sarkar and Nishith Pramanik, who were elected to the West Bengal Assembly from Santipur and Dinhata constituencies respectively, submitted their resignations to Speaker Biman Banerjee on Wednesday, 12 May.
“We have followed the party’s decision. The party decided that we should resign from our Assembly seats,” Pramanik said, according to ANI.
According to a report by The Times of India, the BJP leadership wants these MPs to retain their Parliament membership, which permits them to serve seven Assembly segments instead of one each.
“The party wants me to retain the berth in Parliament. I have been a BJP soldier and will continue to be so,” Sarkar told The Times of India on Tuesday.
The BJP’s tally in the Assembly will now go down to 75 from 77.
With the resignation of these two MLAs, five seats have become vacant in the Bengal Assembly, since elections had not been held for two, owing to the deaths of candidates in the run-up to the polls. The Assembly elections were held only for 292 of the state’s 294 seats. Meanwhile, Kajal Sinha, the winner of the Khardah seat passed away before he could celebrate his win, leaving the seat vacant.
(With inputs from The Times of India and ANI.)
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