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In the coming days, West Bengal Congress might face another defection as speculations are rife that the party’s secretary Samrat Topadar, who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital until Sunday, was visited by leaders of Trinamool Congress but not by anyone from his own party – a factor he termed as “disconcerting”.
Topadar also admitted that he has been asked to join TMC.
“Yes. I have been offered to move to TMC because people think that workers like us are not getting the kind of respect we should. There is a definite lack of sentiment among the top leaders of the state,” he said.
Among the TMC leaders who visited Topadar at the hospital on August 29 was Soumik Hossain, former Youth Congress president who recently shifted to TMC. When the word went out, senior Congress leader Pradeep Bhattacharya and some others hurried over to meet their ailing worker. By then, however, Topadar had already taken things to heart.
“It is true that no one (from Congress) came to visit me at the hospital. It is nothing new. Even earlier, when I was badly beaten up while campaigning as the Congress candidate from Barrackpore during the Lok Sabha elections, no one had paid me a visit. These little gestures are missing in the Congress party which is a bit disconcerting,” he told The Indian Express soon after he was discharged from the hospital on Sunday.
Congress state president Adhir Chowdhury said he had no idea that Topadar was even unwell or that he was admitted to a hospital.
“How will I know if I am not informed? I had no idea he was hospitalised. Had I known, I would have definitely visited him. There is no need to get emotional over this issue,” he said. Interestingly, a Chowdhury had admitted during the Foundation Day celebration of Chhatra Parishad that “senior leaders, including me, had ignored the grassroots workers who make us ministers, MPs and MLAs”.