Ex-TMC MLA Sonali Guha pleads for her return

In a letter to the TMC chief, Guha, who was once considered close to Banerjee, said she was full of remorse for taking the “wrong decision” of leaving the party "after getting emotional".

Former Trinamool Congress MLA Sonali Guha, who had joined the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections, on Saturday apologised to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for leaving the party and urged her to take her back in the party.

In a letter to the TMC chief, Guha, who was once considered close to Banerjee, said she was full of remorse for taking the “wrong decision” of leaving the party “after getting emotional”.

“I am writing this with a broken heart that I took the wrong decision of joining another party after being emotional. I could not get accustomed there. The way a fish cannot live out of the water, I will not be able to live without you, Didi. I seek your forgiveness and if you don’t forgive me, I won’t be able to live. Please allow me to come back and spend the rest of my life in your affection,” Guha wrote, referring to Mamata Banerjee as “Didi”.

Guha also posted the letter on her Twitter handle.

Speaking to mediapersons later, Guha, the foremer MLA from Satgachia, said, “It was a wrong decision to join the BJP. I can see it today. I felt unwanted there. They wanted me to say bad things about Mamata Banerjee. But I could not do it. I will personally try to meet Didi if she gives time.”

“I will go to her residence next week on the day when the last rituals of her brother who passed away recently are scheduled and try to talk to her,” Guha added.

The four-time MLA and former Deputy Speaker in the Assembly, Guha was among the TMC leaders who had switched to the BJP ahead of the elections. She left the TMC after being denied a ticket to contest the election, following which she had an emotional outburst before the media. She then joined the BJP but did not get a ticket to contest the polls.

“I wish to be given an honourable post, be acknowledged as a political personality… May God give Mamata Didi good sense and counsel. I have been with her from the beginning. I have to think about my future moves. I cannot sit idle being a political person,” Guha had said before joining the BJP.

The BJP, meanwhile, slammed Guha for writing the letter to Mamata Banerjee.

“If she is so much in awe of Mamata Banerjee, then why did she join the BJP? Why did she talk about ideological differences with her former party while joining our party?… The BJP never forced her to join the party but she had come on her own. I congratulate her and wish her good luck,” said state BJP vice-president Joy Prakash Majumdar.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that Guha had deserted the party when it was going through a crisis. “She left the party when there was a need to stand united. She left us in times of crisis. .. I must say that the party should not forget about the sentiment of those workers who have worked very hard for which the TMC secured this massive win. And they did it when leaders like her (Guha) left the party for their own reasons,” said Ghosh, adding “the party will take a decision in this regard”.

Source: Read Full Article