In March this year, former Trinamool Congress leader Tapas Roy – “frustrated” at his party’s “silence” over raids at his residence by the Enforcement Directorate – quit the TMC and jumped ship to the BJP. But in the run up to the January probe, the BJP itself levelled corruption charges against Roy. After the defection, the investigation has been “stalled”, alleged opposition leaders.
Roy is among the six turncoats across Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal who contested in the phase seven of the Lok Sabha polls. He is also one of three raided by the central agencies.
Let’s look at the political trajectory of all the six turncoats in the eastern states.
Silbhadra Dutta: Ex- MLA, advocate, suspended after a ‘party’
Silbhadra Dutta is the BJP candidate from Dum Dum in West Bengal. The 65-year-old advocate began his political career with the Congress, but soon switched to the TMC. The two-time Barrackpore MLA remained with the Mamata Banerjee-led party for 22 years until his exit in 2020.
On quitting, Dutta told the media, “I think that I don’t fit in the party in the present scenario”. A day later, he joined the BJP, along with nine TMC MLAs, at Amit Shah’s rally in Medinipur. In the lead up to this, the politician expressed his disapproval of the then-political strategist Prashant Kishor’s involvement in party affairs ahead of the 2021 assembly polls campaign. He subsequently unsuccessfully fought the polls from Khardaha with a BJP ticket.
Notably, Dutta was suspended from the TMC in 2015 for “making anti-party statements for the past year” and “staying away from Trinamool events”. This came a day after he attended an iftar party with the then-sidelined party leader Mukul Roy. However, Dutta was soon reinstated.
The politician has two pending criminal cases, one related to “deputation against murder”. He has assets worth Rs 1.16 crore, 66 percent more than in 2021.
Pradeep Yadav: Ex-cabinet minister, sexual harassment case, ED raids
Pradeep Yadav is the Congress candidate from Godda in Jharkhand. But the 58-year-old’s political journey has been marked with several turns. Yadav joined the BJP in his student days but quit in 2007 and switched to the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha Prajatantrik, founded by former colleague Babulal Marandi.
The JVMP expelled Yadav for “anti-party activities” and merged with the BJP soon after in February 2020. Notably, both Yadav and Marandi had moved the high court against the poaching of six of its MLAs by the saffron party a year earlier. But Marandi sided with the BJP with the party’s merger and Yadav joined the Congress.
The five-time MLA from Poraiyahat and two-time former state cabinet minister has five pending criminal cases, including a case related to alleged sexual harassment of a JVMP woman leader in 2019 when Yadav was the general secretary of the party. In connection with the sexual harassment case, Yadav was jailed for several months until he got bail in September 2019. He is now set to face trial in the matter in the lower court of Dumka.
One of the other cases against Yadav is related to money laundering. The case was lodged in November 2022, after the I-T department raided Yadav’s premises over tax evasion related to coal trading. In May last year, the ED again raided 12 locations linked to Yadav in connection with the same case.
In his affidavit, he has listed his occupation as politician, while his wife runs a business. His assets marginally increase from Rs 1.41 crore in 2019 to Rs 1.59 crore in 2024.
Tapas Roy: ED raids, Lok Sabha security breach connection
Tapas Roy is the BJP candidate from North Kolkata in West Bengal. The 68-year-old five-time MLA has jumped ship twice in his three decade political career that began with the Congress in 1996. He switched to the TMC ahead of the 2001 assembly polls and secured the Bara Bazar seat for the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
He severed his 25 year long ties with the TMC in March this year, saying he was “frustrated” over the party's silence on the ED raids at his residence in January. He accused Banerjee of “deserting him during trying circumstances” and not giving the party’s “loyal soldier” his due.
Roy joined the saffron party in the presence of party leaders Suvendu Adhikari and state chief Sukant Majumdar. He said the central agency “ was not sent to my house by the BJP” but TMC leader Sudip Banerjee “because he is afraid, frightened and jealous of me”.
But months before his defection, it was BJP’s Adhikar who had accused Roy of involvement in a municipal recruitment scam, sparking the ED investigation. Last year, the BJP also alleged that Roy was linked to the Parliament security breach accused Lalit Jha. The saffron party shared pictures of Jha with Roy, but the latter asserted that he had no “intentional association”.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that Roy was the most recent candidate of the BJP’s “washing machine” phenomenon, and that the accusations against him had “disappeared” after he joined the BJP. At present, there are no pending criminal cases against Roy and his asset stands at Rs. 3.49 crore.
Sita Soren: Three-time MLA, political family feud, under CBI lens
Sita Soren is the BJP candidate from the reserved constituency of Dumka in Jharkhand. The 49-year-old began her political career with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, after her husband and party chief Shibu Soren’s son Durga Soren died in 2009. In the same year, Sita Soren was appointed as the JMM’s national general secretary and was also elected as the MLA from Jama. She retained the seat in both the 2014 and the 2019 assembly polls.
In January, all hell broke loose for the Soren family as Sita’s brother-in-law and the then-Chief Minister Hemant Soren got arrested in a corruption case, and a subsequent fight for the top post broke out within the family. Amid speculations that Hemant’s wife Kalpana Soren will assume the CM post, Sita registered a public opposition. "I will strongly protest any move to make her CM."
A senior party leader, Champai Soren, eventually took oath as the CM. But Sita Soren jumped ship to the BJP in March. In her resignation letter to Shibu Soren, the daughter-in-law jotted down a long list of complaints. She alleged that the party had “deviated” from its “core values” and “failed” to provide adequate support to her and her three daughters, and that she was treated as an “untouchable” and there was a “conspiracy” against them. “I am left with no choice but to tender my resignation.”
A verbal spat flared up between Kalpana and Sita on X, and the latter’s daughters also jumped into the controversy. One of the daughters wrote, Sita was “finally, choosing not to bow down”. About a month later, the JMM expelled Sita for six years over “anti-party activities”. Meanwhile, the BJP leaders said she had been “freed from Ravana's Lanka”.
As per her affidavit, she has four pending criminal cases, of which chargesheets have been filed in two. One of these is a 2012 graft case, in which she is accused of taking money from an independent candidate in exchange for support in the Rajya Sabha election. She spent seven months in jail in the case before she was granted bail in September 2014. She came under the CBI radar again in March this year as the Supreme Court overturned the 1998 JMM bribery case judgement on the basis of which Sita had hoped for a reprieve. In the same month, Sita switched to the BJP and the JMM leaders alleged it was to “escape” the wrath of the central agencies.
Sita has studied until class 12 and earns through rent and interest income. Her assets, at Rs 8.87 crore, have almost doubled from Rs 4.43 crore in 2019.
Lekha Samantsinghar: Patnaik critic to supporter, 9 criminal cases
Lekha Samantsinghar is the Biju Janata Dal’s candidate from Balasore in Odisha. But the 53-year-old politician was with the BJP until a few weeks before the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP’s Odisha vice-president broke her decade long ties with the saffron party, saying that she “failed to earn the trust of the party’s leadership”. Hours later, came her gratitude speech for BJD chief Naveen Patnaik.
But not so long ago, Samantsinghar was a vehement critic of Patnaik and the BJD. In 2019, she accused the BJD of “trying to destroy the culture of Odia people” by issuing licences to “dance bars” in Bhubaneswar. Three years before that, the politician faced the BJD women’s wing’s criticism for saying that “Odia families” were migrating and women were engaging in “flesh trade” because of poverty. Samantsinghar eventually had to apologise.
In 2021, she was once again slammed by the BJD for calling the Covid vaccine “Modi tika (injection)” on X. In her defence, the then-BJP leader said: “There is nothing wrong with what I have posted. What PM Modi is doing for the country needs to be told again and again”.
Now, Samantsinghar’s social media accounts only feature pictures of Naveen Patnaik, calling people to vote for the conch party. Recently, she also said that the BJP is “not a political party anymore. They are like a jagirdari [feudal] system…they are doing politics for their own benefit.”
The politician has a PhD in Zoology, while her husband is a government officer. Her source of income is “sitting fee as independent director” of a business, “informal consulting”, and proceeds from “sale of paintings”. Her assets are worth Rs 3.09 crore and she has nine pending criminal cases, with charges of rioting, violence, and causing hurt by weapons.
Anshuman Mohanty: Ex-minister’s son, engineer-entrepreneur
Anshuman Mohanty is the BJD’s candidate from Kendrapara in Odisha. The 40-year-old engineer-entrepreneur and son of former cabinet minister Nalinikanta Mohanty began his political career in 2013 with the Congress. A year later, he jumped into electoral politics and successfully contested the Odisha assembly polls from Rajnagar – the constituency which elected his father seven times.
In the 2019 polls, however, Mohanty lost the seat to the BJD’s Dhruba Sahu. A year later, he was assigned the charge of Congress Kendrapara district president. Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he crossed over to the BJD in February. He said Patnaik’s “idea of new Odisha” prompted him to shift his allegiance, but also emphasised that he has the “highest regard for all Congress workers and leaders”.
Subsequently, after a visit to the CM’s house, Mohanty said, “Now, with the blessings of the chief minister, I have been given the opportunity to serve the entire Lok Sabha constituency”.
His affidavit describes his occupation as “social service”, while his wife is the director of realty firm Ekdanta Infra Projects. At present, his assets are worth Rs 5.12 crore – about 64 percent higher than in 2019. He has no pending criminal cases.
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