NEW DELHI, May 22: The former West Bengal BJP vice-president and MP Arjun Singh on Sunday quit the party and returned to the Trinamool Congress which he had left in preference to the Saffron party just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He had served four terms as a TMC MLA before he switched over to the saffron camp.
Singh was welcomed into Trinamool by the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at his office in South Kolkata. The move comes days after he slammed the party’s state leadership for not allowing him to work properly.
Singh has been targeting the Centre alleging that it was neglecting the jute industry of West Bengal. He had softened his attacks against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee keeping the speculation rife about him returning to the TMC. Singh’s was miffed over the Centre withdrawing the notification capping jute prices at ₹ 6,500 per quintal, a demand he and other industry stakeholders have been pressing for in the last few weeks. Sources also informed that Singh had recently travelled to Delhi to meet the BJP’s top brass over faction fighting in the state unit of the BJP while also raising the jute mill issue.
Singh’s son Pawan Singh is a BJP MLA from Bhatpara, and could follow in his father’s footsteps. Arjun Singh is the second Lok Sabha MP after Babul Supriyo to quit the BJP in West Bengal. Supriyo is now a Trinamool MLA from Ballygunge after winning the recent bye-elections in the constituency after the death of veteran Trinamool leader Subrata Mukherjee.
(Manas Dasgupta)
