Hours after TMC announced the first list of candidates, former BJP leader Tathagata Roy said after TMC denied him a ticket, there are chances that he might approach BJP again. Roy advised against associating with Arjun Singh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has denied giving a ticket to Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh, who left BJP and joined TMC in 2022. The reasons for the denial are not specified.
"Arjun Singh, mafioso of the industrial belt of North 24-Parganas distt, had left TMC and joined BJP. He got a ticket by courtesy of KDSA gang, won and promptly went back to TMC. This time TMC refused him a ticket. Now he will lobby BJP. My entreaty: do not touch him with a ten-foot pole. @AmitShahOffice," Tathagata Roy said in a post on X.
In his tweet, he took a potshot at BJP leaders Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dilip Ghosh and RSS leaders Shiv Prakash and Arvind Menon for the West Bengal debacle and mentioned that they helped Singh to get back at TMC.
Earlier in the day, former Rajya Sabha member and BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta said in a post on X, "This senior BJP leader has highlighted what can happen if Trinamool activists with criminal antecedents are indiscriminately taken into the BJP in W Bengal. While the BJP must keep its doors open to everyone influenced by PM Modi, it is necessary to have a filter in place. Where local units have made mistakes, weed out the undesirables."
Singh, often referred to as the "last word" in Barrackpore, switched allegiance to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after a stint with the BJP and now he has been dropped or denied a ticket this time.
Despite his return to the TMC, Arjun Singh's recent interactions and camaraderie with BJP MPs in the central hall suggest a complex political landscape. In private conversations, he reportedly expressed concerns about facing a "financial loss" due to his decision to join the TMC.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has quelled speculations surrounding its pre-poll seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress party by revealing candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. A second list is anticipated to be released shortly.