There were speculations since Friday morning that Trinamool Congress lawmaker and former Salt Lake Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta is all set to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as he took a flight from the Netaji Subhas Chandra International Airport in Kolkata to Delhi today.
Dutta is Trinamool Congress lawmaker from the Newtown-Rajarhat Assembly constituency. He has been in the news for the past several months for openly meeting BJP leader Mukul Roy, criticising his own party and challenging his party leaders. He had even moved Calcutta High Court challenging the municipality system of issuing a notice to bring no-trust motion against him. After the court ruled in favour of Dutta, he stepped down on his own. Krishna Chakraborty has been chosen as the new Mayor of Salt Lake.
Two days back, former Kolkata Mayor and Trinamool Congress’ top leader Sovon Chatterjee joined the BJP and there are similar speculations about Dutta now.
Sabyasachi Dutta, who stepped down from the Mayor’s position on July 18, however, denied this. He said he was travelling to Delhi for his own business-related matters. However, he said that since the work concerned may have to be handled by Central ministers, there was a possibility he might meet some of them.
Trinamool Congress leaders joining the BJP has being going on since the poor show of the former in the last Lok Sabha polls, and a section of the ruling party’s leaders were shocked to find that their lawmaker from Raidighi, Debashree Roy, was in the BJP office in Delhi two days back.
