On Presidential election eve, TMC & BJP herd their MLAs

While the BJP claimed that some TMC MLAs will vote for the NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu, a tribal leader from neighbouring Odisha; the TMC, on the other hand, also asserted to have some of the BJP MLAs support for the Opposition’s joint candidate Yashwant Sinha, who hails from neighbouring Jharkhand.

Notably, out of the 77 BJP MLAs, eight have already joined the TMC so far.

On Sunday, the remaining 69 MLAs of the BJP were taken to a hotel in Newtown in the outskirts of Kolkata where Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari will be camping to keep his flock together.

“Our MPs will cast their vote in Delhi, while the MLAs will cast their vote here in Kolkata. They may go to the Assembly on a bus… they will go together and cast their votes,” said a BJP leader.

Amid rumours that BJP has sent messages to tribal TMC MLAs to vote for Murmu, the TMC leadership ordered party MLAs to reach Kolkata on Sunday.

Several top leaders — Firhad Hakeem, Subrata Bakshi, Arup Biswas and Partha Chatterjee — have been tasked with securing the MLAs ahead of the election day.

While Hakim has been given responsibility of MLAs of Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, his colleague Arup Biswas is responsible for MLAs from north Bengal, Burdwan, and Durgapur.

“We are almost sure that all our MLAs will cast their vote for Yashwant Sinha. But, we are not taking any risks. So, we ordered all our MLAs to reach Kolkata and report party leadership by Sunday. The party leadership also directed all the MPs and MLAs to cast their vote at the Assembly,” a senior TMC leader said.