NEW DELHI, Apr 11
Days before the West Tripura constituency goes to poll on April 19, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Chandra Bhowmik has joined the Congress party. Bhowmik was apparently irked at the party for ignoring him in the last year’s Tripura Assembly elections despite winning from Belonia in South Tripura district in the 2018 Assembly elections.
The 77-year-old was a leader of the Congress party and its legal cell for years before shifting to the BJP in 2017. A year later, he won from Belonia in a BJP ticket with a margin of 753 votes.
“I was in the Congress party before. I had shifted to BJP and was elected from Belonia assembly constituency in 2018. I was a sitting MLA. I don’t know why I was dropped (from the candidate list). I have the right to know. What was the reason for dropping a sitting MLA,” Bhowmik said, while addressing a poll rally in support of state Congress chief Ashish Kumar Saha, who is INDIA Bloc candidate for West Tripura constituency, on Wednesday.
He said he joined the INDIA alliance headed by the Congress party since the grand old party was his party for long. Without naming CPIM, Bhowmik said several other political parties which raise ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ slogans have come close to Congress with the single goal of defeating BJP and said he joined Congress to support the move.
In an oblique reference to former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb who is contesting against Saha, Bhowmik said a certain BJP leader who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections here, mostly stays at Delhi. He appealed to the people to vote for INDIA bloc candidates. In 1977, he contested from Hrishyamukh assembly constituency, which was the home turf of former revenue minister and CPI(M) veteran Badal Choudhury, but lost.
