Bengali actor Srabanti Chatterjee quits BJP

Kolkata, November 11

Bengali actor Srabanti Chatterjee, who had joined the BJP before this year's assembly elections and unsuccessfully contested against TMC heavyweight Partha Chatterjee, quit the saffron party on Thursday citing its "lack of initiative and sincerity to further the cause of West Bengal".

The 34-year-old actor had been maintaining a distance from the saffron party after it failed to unseat Mamata Banerjee's government from power in the eastern state despite a high-pitched campaign.

"Severing all ties with the BJP, the party for which I fought the last state elections. Reason being their lack of initiative and sincerity to further the cause of Bengal," Chatterjee tweeted.

The West Bengal BJP, however, did not attach much importance to Chatterjee's decision and asserted that "it would hardly impact the party".

"I really don't know whether she was with the party after the elections. It won't have an impact on the party," BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar said.

Echoing him, BJP leader Tathagata Roy, who has been training his guns on the party top brass for the election debacle, called Chatterjee's quitting the party a "good riddance". PTI