Days after losing MLA to TMC, Bengal BJP hit by resignation of MP from Jhargram

Hembram sent his resignation letter to state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar Friday.

Speaking to ThePrint, Majumdar confirmed receiving the letter, adding, “Hembram has informed that his health is not good and he won’t be able to work for the party, he hadn’t been active for quite some time now.”

Asked if he had plans to join another party, Hembram said, “I want to distance myself from the party for personal reasons. The BJP is a big national party. My leaving it won’t affect its functioning.”

The BJP is yet to declare its Lok Sabha candidate from Jhargram, one of the 18 seats it won in the state in the previous general elections.

A CPI(M) fortress from 1977 till 2014, Jhargram is located in West Bengal’s tribal belt, also known as Jangalmahal. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) won this seat in 2014.

However, it lost the seat to the BJP in 2019.

A total seven assembly segments fall under Jhargram – which is a reserved (ST) Lok Sabha seat. All seven seats were won by the TMC in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections.

Contesting on a BJP ticket for the first time in 2019, Hembram had defeated the TMC’s Birbaha Soren by a margin of 11,767 votes. Hembram was also a member of the parliamentary committee on coal, mines and steel in the 17th Lok Sabha.

Though BJP sources say his name was not among those being discussed for the Jhargram seat, the party is yet to issue any official statement in this regard.

Interestingly, barely 24 hours before Hembram resigned from the party, BJP MLA from Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency in Nadia district Mukut Mani Adhikari joined the TMC, alleging that “Nadia had been neglected” by the BJP government at the Centre.

“I want to work for the development of the people under Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee,” Adhikari said Thursday during a public meeting in Kolkata.

The TMC claims Adhikari was unhappy with the BJP for not delivering on its promises. “BJP leaders have understood the party doesn’t want to work for the people of Bengal. They are blocking Central funds and they have understood BJP’s real face and thus they are leaving the party because they want betterment for Bengal,” said TMC leader Santanu Sen.

Against that backdrop, murmurs grew Friday in political circles about the BJP losing a key face to the TMC in the Matua stronghold of Bongaon – Union minister Shantanu Thakur’s MLA brother Subrata Thakur. The BJP eventually posted a video of him denying these rumours and assuring supporters that he was still in the BJP.

“I was given a ticket by the BJP in 2014 polls, and have been associated with the party since. I believe in the leadership of PM Modi and I am not joining the TMC,” he said.

These developments come at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already launched the BJP’s campaign in West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

With four rallies in a week, Modi has addressed all constituencies that the BJP is yet to declare candidates for: Barasat, Krishnanagar, Arambagh and Darjeeling. Of the four, Darjeeling is the only seat with a sitting BJP MP – Raju Bista.

According to political analyst Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, “People witnessed a highly charged-up 2021 polls in West Bengal where big faces dumped their own (parties) and joined hands with the opposing force. So, any leader leaving at this point is of very little significance.”

“If the BJP decided to field the sitting MP under whom they lost all their MLAs, it would call for introspection. So both TMC and BJP will see more leaders leaving and joining rival camps,” he added.