Days Before 4th Phase Voting, Wife Of Trinamool Candidate Joins BJP In Bengal

Two days before the May 13 Lok Sabha elections at Ranaghat in West Bengal's Nadia district, Swastika Maheshwari, the wife of Trinamool Congress candidate Mukut Mani Adhikari, joined the BJP on Saturday.

Swastika Maheshwari, who is already contesting a divorce suit against her husband, joined the BJP at a party rally at Ranaghat in the presence of megastar and BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty.

"Anyone voting for Mukut Mani Adhikari will be cheated exactly like me," she said.

The development comes as a major embarrassment concerning Mukut Mani Adhikari, against whom Swastika Maheswari filed a complaint just a few days after their marriage last year accusing him of cruelty against her.

Mukut Mani Adhikari's nomination as Trinamool Congress candidate has been marred with controversy. He was elected as a BJP legislator in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections from the Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency, one of the seven under the Ranaghat Lok Sabha.

Earlier this year, he joined Trinamool Congress. However, his name was announced as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Ranaghat before he resigned as a BJP legislator. As the BJP started making an issue of it, he finally resigned from the state assembly as a member last month.

Till the time this report was filed, there was no reaction from Mukut Mani Adhikari.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)