Kolkata, 15 October (H.S.): A major political controversy erupted in West Bengal on Tuesday after Nirmal Ghosh, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Nadia district who was once accused in the 2019 murder of Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Satyajit Biswas, joined the ruling Trinamool Congress.

According to party sources, Ghosh, a resident of Hanskhali in Nadia, was among six persons named in the February 9, 2019 murder of TMC MLA Satyajit Biswas from the Krishnaganj constituency. The killing, which took place just months before the Lok Sabha elections, had shaken the state’s political landscape at the time.

Ghosh was arrested on murder charges but was later acquitted by the court. His induction into the TMC was facilitated by the party’s state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar and Ranaghat (South) MLA Mukut Mani Adhikari—both of whom are former BJP leaders. Majumdar once served as BJP’s state vice-president, while Adhikari was a former BJP legislator.

Justifying Ghosh’s inclusion, Jay Prakash Majumdar said that he was “framed in the 2019 murder case due to a conspiracy by some local BJP leaders in Nadia.”

Meanwhile, the slain MLA’s wife, Rupali Biswas, has reportedly chosen to stay away from the media after the development. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she had contested from the Ranaghat parliamentary seat as a TMC candidate but lost to BJP’s two-time MP Jagannath Sarkar.

Although the TMC leadership has not issued an official statement on the matter, several local party leaders admitted that Ghosh’s induction has sparked discontent among grassroots workers. A TMC MLA from Nadia, requesting anonymity, said, “No one is speaking publicly, but ground-level workers are unhappy with this decision.”

Reacting sharply, BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar said the development exposes the “political bankruptcy” of the Trinamool Congress. “This shows how TMC’s leadership truly views its own workers in Nadia,” Sarkar remarked.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh