Five TMC MLAs join BJP ahead of West Bengal polls

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], March 8 : In a significant development ahead of West Bengal Assembly polls, five sitting Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLAs and a party candidate who was allotted a seat from Habibpur for upcoming polls joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday.
TMC MLAs Sonali Guha, Dipendu Biswas, Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Sital Kumar Sardar and Jatu Lahiri joined the BJP here in the presence of West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, party vice president Mukul Roy and party leader Suvendu Adhikari.
Sarala Murmu, TMC leader who was allotted a party ticket to contest from Habibpur, has joined the BJP despite making the fact that her name was mentioned in the candidate list in West Bengal this election season.
There has been an exodus of leaders from TMC to BJP in the last few months in the poll-bound West Bengal.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday released the list of 291 candidates for the forthcoming Assembly polls.
Following this, BJP on Saturday released its first list of 57 candidates for the polls and fielded Adhikari from Nandigram against TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, setting the stage for a high-profile contest from the seat in the state Assembly elections.
West Bengal Assembly elections will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.