Kolkata: In another jolt to the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, Barrackpore MLA Shilbhadra Dutta has resigned from the party. However, he is yet to resign as an MLA. This is the third time that a top leader has resigned from the Trinamool Congress in the last two days. Earlier former minister Suvendu Adhikari and party heavyweight Jitendra Tiwari had quit. All the three are expected to join the BJP in the next couple of days. The distance between Shilbhadra Dutta and the TMC had been growing in the last couple of weeks. Even though, party supremo Mamata Banerjee has said that those who want to leave the TMC can do so, these desertions will certainly be a huge dent in the Trinamool Congress.
Shilbhadra had expressed his displeasure over the functioning of poll strategist Prashant Kishor and his team. Time and again he has stated in TV interviews that with his experience, ‘he is now being forced to learn how to conduct elections’ from Kishor and his team. “They came a few days back to my residence and tried to teach me how to work. They are a group who work for money. I am not ready to learn how to conduct elections from them,” Shilbhadra had recently said during a TV interview.
The exodus of top leaders in quick succession has certainly left the TMC red-faced. The BJP on the other hand is enjoying the recent developments. Mukul Roy, who was one of the first to leave the TMC, has said that leaders with mass base will certainly be welcome to the saffron party. “The TMC does not have a policy people who want to work are not allowed to do so there. Good leaders and MLAs will certainly leave TMC. In the days to come many more such leaders will quit TMC,” he has been quoted as saying in a vernacular daily.
Whatever, the reasons may be for the desertions they certainly put the TMC in a spot of bother. With the Assembly elections just a few months away, TMC cannot afford to sit easy. The party has to now look within to stop the exodus.