Rebel Trinamool Congress MP and brother BJP Leader Suvendu Adhikari Dibyendu Adhikari said on Friday that he would vote for the joint opposition candidate. Yashwant Sinha In the presidential election of July 18 but will cast his vote in Parliament.
Dibyendu, who was elected from Tamluk on a TMC ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, kept a distance from the TMC as his brother Suvendu left the TMC to join the BJP ahead of last year’s assembly elections in the state. His father, a three-time TMC MP, Shishir Adhikari, has also been speaking out against the party and even attended rival BJP’s rallies during the assembly election campaign. However, the TMC MP from Kanthi did not officially join the BJP.
He said, ‘I will follow the instructions of my party. I will vote for Yashwant Sinha, but I will not go to vote in the state assembly. I will go to New Delhi to cast my vote in Parliament,” Dibyendu said.
Last year, the TMC had submitted a petition before Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking disqualification of Sisir Adhikari. anti-defection law, The matter is pending with the Speaker.
Responding to Dibyendu’s remarks, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said, “We have come to know that an MP elected on TMC ticket has said that he will vote for Yashwant Sinha in the presidential election, but will go to Delhi and go secretly. will cast their vote. Instead he should attend party meetings in his hometown of Contai on July 17 and then come to Kolkata the next day to cast his vote here. If not, we’ll think it’s a lie.”
Minister of State Tapas Ray said Dibyendu and his father have been away from party programs for more than a year. “We have seen how Shishir Adhikari campaigned for the BJP in the assembly elections,” he said.
NDA’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu met BJP MPs and MLAs from West Bengal in Kolkata on Tuesday and sought their support. However, Dibyendu and Shishir Adhikari did not attend the meeting.
With inputs from PTI