Kolkata, March 17 A former BJP panchayat chief, who was known to be close to senior party leader Suvendu Adhikari, rejoined the ruling TMC on Tuesday amid speculation that he may be pitted against the leader of the opposition in the Nandigram constituency in the upcoming assembly elections.
Pabitra Kar, a former panchayat pradhan of Boyal-1 gram panchayat in Nandigram-2 block of Purba Medinipur district, rejoined the Trinamool Congress in the presence of the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
The TMC, in a social media post, said that Kar was "dissatisfied with the BJP's anti-people stance".
Kar, who quit the TMC in November 2020 to join the BJP, played a significant role in consolidating the saffron party's organizational structure in the Boyal-1 area, and was believed to have been instrumental in securing a lead for the BJP in the region in the 2021 assembly elections. Adhikari had defeated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by a slender margin of just over 1,900 votes in Nandigram.
Kar taking up the TMC flag from Abhishek Banerjee barely hours before the party's candidate list was scheduled to be announced has led to fervent speculation in the state's political circles that he may be pitted against Adhikari in the Nandigram assembly seat.