Bengal boomerang: Cong MLA who wrested Sagardighi seat from TMC, joins TMC

Biswas was personally welcomed into the TMC by its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, on the sidelines of his Jan Sanjog Yatra, at Ghatal in West Midnapore.

Soon after, the TMC tweeted: “To strengthen your resolve to fight against the divisive and discriminatory politics of BJP, you have chosen the right platform. Together, we will win!”

For the Congress, the Sagardighi win, by more than 22,000 votes, had been a huge morale booster. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the party had finished third in the seat, with the TMC’s Subrata Saha securing more than 50% of the vote. Saha’s demise necessitated the bypoll.

The win was particularly special for Congress West Bengal president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, as Sagardighi falls in his stronghold of Murshidabad. On Monday, Chowdhury accused Biswas of betraying the people who voted for him. Accusing the TMC of using unfair means to woo Biswas, he said: “We will choose a more honest candidate in the future.”

After handing over the TMC flag to Biswas, to mark his entry in the party, Abhishek Banerjee said he had been in touch with the Congress MLA for some time. “On Monday, he met me and assured me that he wanted to work with Mamata Banerjee and fight against the BJP and the step motherly attitude of the Centre towards Bengal.”

Amidst talks of larger anti-BJP Opposition unity, Abhishek further said, “The Congress and CPI(M) here are fighting against us and helping the BJP. Our leader Mamata Banerjee is fighting against the Congress but supported the Congress in Karnataka. We want to defeat the BJP, but they are helping the BJP here.”

Abhishek further claimed: “If I press a button, at least four Congress MPs will join the TMC. But we do not want that, we want to fight against the BJP.”

Speaking about the 2021 Assembly elections, he talked of the Congress, CPI(M) and Indian Secular Front (ISF) coming together, and said: “The fight was between the TMC and BJP, yet Congress leaders joined hands with the CPI(M) and ISF in a bid to strengthen the BJP… We have always maintained our stance, which is ‘No Vote To BJP’. Mamata Banerjee had said the same thing before the Karnataka elections, that you can vote for whichever party you want, but you should not vote for the BJP. In fact, post the Karnataka elections, Mamata Banerjee had congratulated the people for voting out the BJP.”

Biswas, who had said soon after his win that “the TMC cannot buy me”, repeated Abhishek’s claims Monday, while asserting that “the Congress did not contribute anything to my win in the Sagardighi bypoll”. “Adhir Chowdhury does not speak a word against the BJP. I could do no work in the Congress, so I decided to join the TMC,” Biswas said.

CPI(M) leader Tanmay Bhattacharya said, “Bayron Biswas did not win the election on his own. He won because people wanted to defeat the BJP and TMC. If the Sagardighi poll is held again, the BJP and TMC will be defeated again, even if Bayron is the TMC candidate.”

Both Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and nephew Abhishek had campaigned in Sagardighi. With the TMC losing, party sources had admitted they were worried about the minority vote having shifted to the Congress-CPI(M) alliance because as almost 63% of Sagardighi population is Muslim.

Mamata had lashed out, blaming “the immoral alliance between the Congress, Left and BJP” for the party’s Sagardighi loss, and accused the BJP of “transferring its votes to the Congress”.

The TMC had gone on to set up a committee to look into the reasons for its loss. The panel had identified conflict between party leaders and lack of a local connect between the voters and the party candidate as the key reasons for the defeat.