In a development that could provide a major boost to the ruling BJP in Tripura ahead of the February 16 Assembly polls, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MLA Moboshar Ali and Trinamool Congress leader Subal Bhowmik on Friday joined the saffron party in the national capital.
Ali and Bhowmik joined the BJP at the party headquarters in Delhi in presence of Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, state party president Rajib Bhattacharjee, and the party`s spokesperson and northeastern states` in-charge Sambit Patra.
BJP sources also said that senior Congress leader Billal Mia and some other leaders are also likely to join the saffron party.Mia, however, denied the possibility of joining the BJP.
Ali was elected to the Tripura Assembly from Kailasahar constituency in northern Tripura in 2018, while Mia won the Boxanagar seat in western Tripura twice, in 1988 and 1998.
Both Ali and Mia are senior leaders of their respective parties.The Trinamool Congress removed Subal Bhowmik from the post of Tripura unit state president on August 24 last year, but he was in the party.Bhowmik, a former Congress MLA, joined the Trinamool Congress in July 2021.He had jumped ship from the BJP to the Congress in 2019.
“The party is in talks with a few other CPI-M and Congress leaders to join the party,” a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said.”The BJP is likely to nominate both Ali and Mia to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls,” he told the media on the condition of anonymity.