With New Entrants, Mamata Banerjee Finds Toehold In Bihar, Haryana
NDTV
Kirti Azad, former Team India batsman who changed teams from BJP to the Congress in 2019, has now signed up with Mamta Banerjee. So has Ashok Tanwar, formerly a Rahul Gandhi aide, and Pawan Verma, the Rajya Sabha MP for Janata Dal United from Bihar expelled by the party.
In expansion mode ever since it fought off the BJP assault in the April-May Bengal Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress today shifted gears in its acquisition of political leaders and made three new additions to the party from across the country -- mostly at the cost of the Congress. With these additions, the party has also signalled that it is ready to go ahead towards 2024 on its own.
Kirti Azad, former Team India batsman who changed teams from BJP to the Congress in 2019, has now signed up with Mamta Banerjee. So has Ashok Tanwar, formerly a Rahul Gandhi aide who proved his mettle as Congress chief in Haryana till he fell out with the top brass in the state.
Pawan Verma, the Rajya Sabha MP for Janata Dal United from Bihar, who fell out with party chief and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, also joined the Trinamool Congress today.
Mr Verma was expelled by the JDU in January 2020 -- at the same time as the party's national Vice-President Prashant Kishor, who is now a full-time election strategist propelling the Trinamool Congress towards the national stage.
