Ex-Trinamool MLA joins BJP ahead of crucial bypoll

Just two days before the crucial bypoll to the Dhupguri Assembly seat in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, the ruling Trinamool Congress received a jolt as the party’s former MLA from the same constituency shifted her camp to the BJP. Mitali Roy, the former party MLA from Dhupguri from 2016 to 2021, also contested on behalf of the ruling party in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections from the same constituency. However, in 2021 she was defeated by BJP’s Bishnu Pada Roy, who died recently necessitating the bypoll. Party insiders said that she was expecting a re-nomination for the September 5 bypoll. But the ruling party instead of re-nominating her, fielded Nirmal Chandra Roy, a professor at the Dhupguri Girls College, for the seat. Giving her reaction to media persons immediately after joining BJP, Roy said that she was virtually isolated within Trinamool Congress since her defeat in the 2021 polls.