Trusting Suvendu Adhikari was biggest mistake: Burdwan East MP

Sunil Mandal said the people of Bengal couldn’t understand the language of the Hindi-speaking BJP leaders

Suvendu Adhikari.: File photo

Arkamoy Datta Majumdar   |  TT  |  Calcutta   | 16.06.21: Burdwan East MP Sunil Mandal, deemed a close aide to Suvendu Adhikari, on Tuesday was the latest addition to the rapidly growing list of Trinamul Congress turncoats in the BJP to publicly criticise their new party following the saffron camp’s defeat in the Assembly polls.

Mandal — whose disqualification as a Lok Sabha member Trinamul has been demanding — also turned the knife, saying trusting Adhikari was his “biggest mistake”.

“I thought the BJP was an organised party. But I later found out it isn’t. Trinamul has much better organisational strength and hence it won,” said Mandal, one of the two Trinamul MPs (the other being Adhikari’s father, Sisir), who formally defected to the BJP before the polls.

“It is time for us to self-assess and analyse realistically the reasons for our loss and stop threatening a state government, which just came to power with such massive majority, with President’s rule,” he said.

Mandal added that the people of Bengal couldn’t understand the language of the Hindi-speaking BJP leaders.

His statements were issued a day after Trinamul’s leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay had called Speaker Om Birla again, urging him to act against Mandal and Sisir following their defection.

Asked if he regretted joining the BJP, Mandal said: “I wouldn’t think about it right now. But yes, there were some mistakes on my part in understanding the BJP…. My biggest mistake was trusting Suvendu.”

BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh said there was room for dialogue within the party regarding such issues. “We had inducted many leaders into our party. They have been given their due respect…. If someone is frustrated, he can always speak to us,” said Ghosh.

Trinamul promptly reacted to Mandal’s statements saying he was simply trying to save himself from the anti-defection law.

Trinamul’s Serampore MP Kalyan Banerjee said people didn’t trust those like Mandal.

“Speaker Birla told Sudip Bandyopadhyay that a committee had been set up to determine if the anti-defection law was to be applied against Sunil Mandal and Sisir Adhikari. This has scared him (Mandal)…. He is sub-standard for politics,” said Banerjee.

Asked to react to Trinamul’s efforts to cancel the senior Adhikari’s Lok Sabha membership, Ghosh said he didn’t even know if the Contai MP had at all joined the BJP.

“I don’t know if he (Sisir) joined our party or spoke from a BJP platform. If they (Trinamul) have evidence against him, let them speak to the authorities,” said the Midnapore MP.

In March, Sisir was seen at a BJP rally of Union home minister Amit Shah, where he delivered a speech vowing that his clan would work “under (Narendra) Modiji and Amit Shahji”. Later, he was also seen at a rally of Prime Minister Modi.