Days after expressing displeasure with the BJP and threatening to quit active politics, MP Babul Supriyo switched camps joining the Trinamool Congress.
Supriyo — whose name featured on the of the BJP’s star campaigners in the upcoming by-election for Bhabanipur, a seat CM Mamata Banerjee is contesting to win her berth as a MLA — joined the Trinamool in the presence of national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee and MP, Derek O Brien.
The singer-turned-MP who won the Lok Sabha seat from Asansol was amongst the two MPs to win from Bengal in 2014. In 2019, he won the seat again with a record high margin.
However, his political fortunes saw a decline after he lost his Union cabinet berth in the recent shuffle following a poor show in the Bengal Assembly elections.
Induction of Trinamool turncoats into the saffron fold, especially in the Asansol area, ahead of the 2021 State polls, had also irked him. He had been vocal against such inductions.
Reports of him not getting along with the local leadership here had also come to the fore; but Supriyo and the BJP leadership both had vehemently denied any such rift.