TMC heavyweight leads 6 MLAs, 1 MP into BJP ahead of 2021 polls

In an unprecedented pre-poll churn in Bengal that Union home minister Amit Shah termed “just the beginning”, former minister and Mamata Banerjee aide Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday led a batch of 10 turncoat MLAs and one MP – eight of them Trinamool Congress deserters – to the ranks of BJP. A total of 60 other councillors and zilla parishad and panchayat samiti members from various parties switched to saffron in the presence of Shah, whom Adhikari referred to as “my elder brother”.