JOIN USGolden moment: Ex-TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi joins BJP ahead of West Bengal polls
Three weeks after quitting as Trinamool Congress' Rajya Sabha MP, criticising the party for political violence in poll-bound West Bengal, former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Saturday joined the BJP saying it was the "golden moment" of his life.
Trivedi, who had announced his resignation from Rajya Sabha on February 12 on the floor of the House, was welcomed to the party at a press conference attended by BJP President J P Nadda and Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Dharmendra Pradhan among others.
One of the first General Secretaries of Trinamool Congress, 70-year-old Trivedi's entry into BJP comes as Bengal approaches polls amid a heated battle between ruling TMC and the saffron party.
Welcoming Trivedi into the party, Nadda said he is a "principled person" who was earlier a "right person in the wrong party" and was "now in the right party".
Nadda said Trivedi never compromised on his principles but always paid the price for that.
"In Trinamool, corruption, opportunism, the killing of democracy, strangling of institutions, all these things are enshrined. Dinesh Trivedi has a long political experience and has taken an ideological journey in politics. He has spent his life fighting the battle of thought, bypassing power. That is why the rich and sensitive personality Dinesh Trivedi has joined BJP today," Nadda said.
Trivedi said this was the "golden moment" he had been waiting for. For some, he said family is supreme in politics but people are supreme in BJP. He also said international communities have started taking India more seriously following the Narendra Modi-led government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While announcing his resignation, Trivedi had said in the House, "I feel cannot keep quiet when there is so much violence going on back home. I am in a party and obviously bound by the party discipline. I now feel suffocated."
Trivedi had told reporters on February 12, "Trinamool Congress is not in the hands of Mamata Banerjee anymore. It has been taken over by corporate professionals who just joined. There is no forum within the party to air our views. The party wants me to abuse the Prime Minister every day. They want me to rush to the well. I can't do that."
Trivedi, who was in Congress and later in Janata Dal, joined Trinamool Congress in 1998 and was its first General Secretary along with Mukul Roy, who had also deserted the party to join BJP.
He was elevated to Manmohan Singh's cabinet in 2011 when Mamata Banerjee resigned as Railway Minister to become West Bengal Chief Minister. However, he had to quit later after he invited the wrath of Mamata for increasing train fare in the budget.
Trivedi lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but TMC nominated him to the Rajya Sabha in April last year. He first entered the Upper House in 1990 and was elected once again in 2002. In 2009 and 2014, he won Lok Sabha seats.