3 months ago
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The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MLA from North Bengal’s Kurseong, Bishnu Prasad Sharma, joined the ruling Trinamool Congress connected Thursday (February 19, 2026) up of the scheduled Assembly elections.
Mr. Sharma, who had been publically captious of the BJP for rather immoderate clip now, wields sizeable power successful the Gorkhaland region. He joined the Trinamool successful the beingness of State Ministers Shashi Panja and Bratya Basu, some elder enactment leaders, at the enactment headquarters.
“Disillusioned by BJP’s jono-birodhi [anti-people] and Bangla-birodhi [anti-Bengal] stance, helium has chosen to basal firmly beside Smt. @MamataOfficial and enactment successful the work of the radical of Bengal,” the Trinamool posted connected X.
Mr. Basu, the State’s Education Minister, said Mr. Sharma joined the Trinamool retired of his escaped will. Ms. Panja, the State’s Women and Child Development Minister, called the party’s caller enlistee a “fellow warrior”.
“The enactment I was with for the past 5 years ne'er sent wealth to the State government, but adjacent then, the improvement enactment ne'er stopped here. The chaotic authorities that is going connected successful the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is the lone 1 challenging it,” Mr. Sharma said.
He said the BJP spoke astir the Gorkhaland contented successful their past predetermination manifesto but did not connection thing to the radical successful the past 5 years. “Trusting the BJP, we person not been capable to make Darjeeling oregon fulfil our promises to the people. That is wherefore the combat Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is warring for the people, I wanted to beryllium portion of that,” he said.
The rift between Mr. Sharma and the BJP became salient when he fought, and lost, the 2024 Lok Sabha predetermination arsenic an Independent campaigner against the BJP’s Raju Bista from the Darjeeling constituency.
“From the extremity of 2023, he started to isolate himself from the party. He fought against BJP campaigner Raju Bista successful the Lok Sabha elections successful 2024 and got lone 7,000 votes. If idiosyncratic gets 7,000 votes in a Lok Sabha spot which includes 3 Assembly seats, that shows a batch astir his nationalist presence,” Shankar Ghosh, the BJP’s main whip successful the Assembly, told The Hindu.
He said the BJP is not bothered by Mr. Sharma’s power to the Trinamool, adding that the enactment volition triumph the Kurseong seat by a monolithic borderline successful the upcoming election.
In the 2021 Assembly election, Mr. Sharma defeated Tshering Lama Dahal of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Tamang) by 15,515 votes.
