Trinamool gains political mileage through ex-BJP members

Former Union cabinet minister in multiple BJP governments Yashwant Sinha, who joined Trinamool Congress last year, is now a Presidential candidate for the collective opposition

Three prominent faces that once were part of the Bharatiya Janata Party—Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha, and Babul Supriyo—have been able to find their political true north again, thanks to their move to Trinamool Congress.

Political manoeuvres by TMC chief Mamata Banerjee seem to be working in favour of these leaders who, disillusioned with the BJP’s workings, parted ways with it.

Yashwant Sinha, a once-prominent member of the BJP, was unanimously projected on Tuesday as a Presidential candidate by major political parties that loosely form the Opposition in Lok Sabha.

Sinha, a Union Finance Minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, is known to have been critical of the economic policies of the Modi government.

Also read: Draupadi Murmu is BJP-led NDA candidate for Presidential polls

Having quit the BJP in 2018, Yashwant Sinha joined TMC in March 2021, ahead of the state assembly polls. He minced no words in explaining that the present BJP government at the Centre was vastly different from the one led by Vajpayee.

Another BJP veteran, Shatrughan Sinha joined the TMC, in March this year. “Happy to share that on an invite from our own tigress of Bengal, tried, tested, successful honourable CM, Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, I have joined TMC. Shall be contesting under the dynamic leadership of a great lady, great leader of the masses in true sense, Mamata Banerjee,” he had announced on Twitter on March 15.

Shatrughan Sinha had left the BJP to join Congress in 2019 because the party, for him, had become a “one-man show” and he was unhappy with the way it was being steered. The actor-turned-politician contested the by-election from Asansol constituency this year and brought Trinamool a seat that it had not won ever.

In September last year, Babul Supriyo, then a BJP MP from Asansol, joined TMC. In July, he had announced (in a post) that he will quit politics. In a reshuffle, prior to that, Supriyo was dropped from the Union cabinet. “Today, in the presence of national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and RS MP Derek O’Brien, former Union minister and sitting MP Babul Supriyo joined the Trinamool family…” Trinamool’s official Twitter handle posted on September 18, 2021.

Over the past few months, the Trinamool Congress has inducted several senior politicians into its fold, including the senior leaders who quit the BJP. The TMC’s consequent political gain, however, is a wait-and-watch situation.