Sunday, 19 September 2021 | Saugar Sengupta | Kolkata
In a blow to the saffron clan, Asansol BJP MP and former Union Minister Babul Supriyo on Saturday quit the party and joined the Trinamool Congress little more than two months after he was stripped of his ministerial status after which he had vowed to quit politics.
Supriyo joined the TMC in the presence of the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and its Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien.
While the State BJP called it an “act of revenge”, the Asansol MP said there is no vengeance in his mind and that he left his earlier party just because he was “feeling stagnated” and the “space for work was increasingly getting narrower…. I thought my effort to serve people for several years got a full stop… why… or how… is irrelevant”.
Supriyo’s joining the TMC comes close on the heel of at least 5 MLAs, including former BJP national vice president Mukul Roy, quitting that party.
Soon after he joined the BJP, the Union Government on Saturday scaled down the armed security cover of Central paramilitary commandos given to the Asansol MP. His security cover was reduced from the second-highest level of Z to Y category, sources said.
Replying to posers on the reasons behind his quitting the party that he joined after being “inspired” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Supriyo said, “I knew that questions will be asked as to why I left the party or whether it had anything to do with my losing the ministerial job. I thought some encouragement would come my way after seven years of hard work I had put in for the people and the party.”
When asked whether he would resign the Asansol parliamentary seat, he said, “Obviously I would … in conversation with my leadership … I will play by the rule book and ethics book.”
He later said he would go to Delhi in a couple of days where he would tender his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
