Three turncoats get ministerial berths in Mamata government

Kolkata, Aug 3

As nine Trinamool Congress legislators were inducted as ministers in the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, three out of them are turncoat politicians who joined Trinamool Congress at a later stage.

The first and foremost among them is singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo, who was a two-time BJP Lok Sabha member from Asansol in West Burdwan district and was also a Minister of State in the Narendra Modi-led Union government.

However, after the 2021 Bengal Assembly elections, he left the BJP and joined the Trinamool Congress and also resigned as the Asansol Lok Sabha member. He later got elected to the Assembly in the bypolls from Ballygunge constituency early this year.

The bypoll in Ballygunge was necessitated following the passing away of sitting Trinamool MLA and former state panchayat minister, Subrata Mukherjee.

The second turncoat to get the ministerial berth on Wednesday was Udayan Guha, the party MLA from Dinhata assembly constituency in Cooch Behar district.

Son of late Kamal Guha, the heavyweight Minister of Agriculture, Agriculture Marketing and Public Health engineering in the Left Front regime in West Bengal, he started his political career as an MLA of his father's party, All India Forward Bloc in 2011 from Dinhata.

However, before the 2016 Assembly polls, he shifted to the Trinamool, which fielded him from Dinhata only and he won. However, in the 2021 Assembly elections, Guha got defeated by Nishith Pramanik, the sitting BJP MP from Cooch Behar then.

Pramanik, however, chose to remain MP and resigned as the Dinhata MLA, which necessitated bypolls, which Guha won.

Both Supriyo and Guha have been inducted as cabinet ministers.

The third turncoat was Tajmul Hossain from Harishchandrapur Assembly constituency in Malda district. A two time All India Forward Bloc MLA from Harishchandrapur, he, like Guha, joined the Trinamool before the 2016 Assembly elections. He contested as a Trinamool candidate from Harishchandrapur in 2016 but got defeated by Congress's Alam Mostaque.

Elected from Harishchandrapur in 2021, he has been made a minister of state.