BJP’s Bishnupur MLA joins Trinamool, BJP seat tally down from 77 to 73 in Bengal

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Bishnupur, Tanmay Ghosh, on Monday joined the Trinamool Congress. At a programme in Kolkata, Ghosh joined Trinamool in presence of state minister Bratya Basu. Ghosh said that he was joining Bengal’s ruling party to be part of the state’s progress and appealed to other BJP MLAs to do the same.

Tanmay Ghosh was earlier with the Trinamool Congress, who had joined the BJP prior to the Assembly polls.

Earlier, BJP MLA Mukul Roy – who was elected from Krishnagar Uttar, joined the Trinamool, leading to a drop in the total seat tally for the party in the recent Assembly polls. The party had won 77 seats when results were out on May 5. Later, Santipur and Dinhata MLAs – Jagannath Sarkar and Nishith Pramanick, resigned as MLAs as they are both MPs and chose to retain the MP seats. Pramanick was later inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet as a junior minister. Thus, the total number of seats for the BJP has come down to 73.

Trinamool leader and state minister Bratya Basu said that more BJP MLAs will join the Trinamool in the coming days, as many had expressed the wish to do so.