Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has been delivered another jolt from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal with former Mayor of Bidhannagar and MLA Sabyasachi Dutta set to join the saffron party. “I will be joining BJP tomorrow (Tuesday) at Netaji Indoor Stadium (Kolkata) in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah,” ANI quoted Dutta as saying.

This year in July, Dutta stepped down from the post of Mayor following a notice by the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation who had convened a meeting of the board of councilors on the direction of the chairperson for removing him. He, however, challenged the notice in the court which later quashed the notice on technical ground. A day after the court’s decision, Dutta resigned from the post.

The relationship between TMC and Dutta ebbed after the latter participated in a protest against his own party, TMC. He criticised the Mamata Banerjee-led government for not fulfilling the longstanding demands of increasing salaries in the power sector. In his resignation, Dutta wrote that he thought of giving a strong message before finally submitting his resignation. “…knocked the doors of justice challenging the illegalities and irregularities adopted to show how powerful some can be for the fault of me (sic) exercising my freedom of speech and expression and speaking for the oppressed section,” he had said.

Dutta represents Rajarhat New Town in the state Assembly. Two time MLA, the TMC leader had defeated CPI-M’s Narendranath Chatterjee in the last Assembly elections held in 2016.

The TMC is on a continuous slide following the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May. In the last few months, a string of legislators from the TMC (MLAs, Mayors, councilors) has joined the BJP. Earlier in July, BJP leader Mukul Roy, who was also with the TMC till a few months ago, said that nearly 107 MLAs were in touch with the saffron party. “Majority of them are from the TMC. Few are from the Congress and the CPI-M. They are willing to join the BJP very soon,” Roy had said.