Rajib Banerjee, Vaishali Dalmia & others take chartered flight to Delhi after Amit Shah’s visit to Bengal gets postponed

With Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Bengal getting postponed (reportedly due to a blast in Delhi), the Trinamool Congress leaders expected to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during his visit are now travelling to Delhi.

Rajib Banerjee, Vaishali Dalmiya and Rathin Chakraborty, Partha Sarathi Chatterjee and Prabir Ghoshal are going to Delhi in a chartered flight arranged by the BJP. Along with them, actor Rudranil Ghosh is also flying to Delhi in the same flight and will join the BJP. Ghosh has been close to the former Left Front government as well as Mamata Banerjee government, and now is set to join the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections.

They former Trinamool legislators will also meet BJP president JP Nadda along with Shah in Delhi. A programme of formal joining is scheduled in Delhi, following which they are all expected to return to Kolkata by tonight.

Shah cancelled his visit late Friday and the Bengal BJP cited “unavoidable circumstances” and the “situation in Delhi” for it. He is expected to hold a meeting on the blast that took place in a high-security zone close to the Israeli embassy in central Delhi, keeping a close watch on developments with regard to protests by farmers against the farm laws.

Meanwhile, instead of Amit Shah, Union Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani will be coming for a meeting at Howrah. Defence minister Rajnath Singh is also likely to attend the meeting. The state BJP has not yet confirmed the presence of any other BJP leaders.