It was on a Sunday afternoon, one-and-a-half years ago in central Kolkata that hundreds of cadres of the Left Front, along with some State-level leaders, joined the BJP.
Again, on a Sunday afternoon, over 100 BJP workers, including those who had left the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) in July of 2014, came back to the party in a less-hyped programme at Hemanta Basu Bhawan, the AIFB headquarters.
For the first time, the AIFB has witnessed such en masse return of defectors — 107 in all — who claimed that the BJP has “changed its agenda” to fight the Trinamoo Congress in the State. “We joined the BJP in the hope that it will fight the misrule of the Trinamool. But with the tacit understanding between the BJP and the Trinamool, we have decided to leave the party,” said Dipa Chakravarty, a BJP candidate in the last Kolkata Municipal elections.
Ali Imran, party’s MLA and general secretary of the youth wing, Yuva League, claimed that the ‘g har wapsi’ (homecoming) started a few months ago. “The home coming you are seeing now started a few months back. Those who left us have finally realised that the BJP is a non-entity in Bengal,” Mr. Imran said.
Among the AIFB leaders who joined the BJP in July 2014 was Anirban Chowdhury, former secretary of Yuva League, party’s youth wing. Mr. Chowdhury, once one of the vocal critics of the State leadership, also returned to the party a few months back.
Published - January 11, 2016 02:48 am IST
