Kolkata, Oct 5 (IANS) Rukmini Mallick, popularly known as Koel Mallik, an actress-turned-politician and former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member, officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday morning. On Sunday, the BJP announced her name as its candidate for the forthcoming bypoll for the Rajya Sabha seat, which was vacated by her earlier this year. On Monday, BJP’s state general secretary Shashi Agnihotri handed over the party flag to Koel at the BJP state office in Salt Lake. The others present on the occasion were the BJP’s media department convener Anupam Ghosh and co-convener Chandrashekhar Basotia. Mallik will file her nomination papers in the West Bengal Assembly on Monday.

“In the last few months, West Bengal has been going through a journey of development. We want more work to be done in West Bengal. I want to be involved in the development of West Bengal. I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari for nominating me as a Rajya Sabha candidate for the party. I will be filing my nomination today," she said. However, Koel Mallik refused to make any adverse comment about the leadership of her former party, Trinamool Congress led by former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The bypoll for the vacant Rajya Sabha seat will be on October 16.

To recall, in February this year Trinamool Congress announced the name of Koel Mallick as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha along with former Director General of West Bengal Police, Rajeev Kumar, former West Bengal tourism minister and singer-turned-politician, Babul Supriyo and Supreme Court of India’s senior advocate, Menaka Guruswamy as candidates for the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. The Rajya Sabha elections were held in March this year. Mallick had been a Rajya Sabha member since then. However, she did not attend any session of the Parliament even once.

After the defeat of the Trinamool Congress in the West Bengal Assembly elections, earlier this year, the party’s erstwhile Rajya Sabha members started resigning one after another. Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Sushmita Dev and Prakash Chik Baraik were the first three erstwhile Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha members to resign. However, within a month of their resignations, they got re-elected as BJP candidates from the seats vacated by them. After that in July this year, Mallik also resigned from the Upper House of Parliament.

Since then, speculation started surfacing on whether she would also be re-elected from the seat vacated by her but as a BJP candidate. The speculations on this count surfaced because of the actions of the actress-turned-politician. She met the Indian Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairperson, C.P. Radhakrishnan in New Delhi on July 16 and submitted her resignation to him. Soon after resigning from her post as MP, she met Union Minister Bhupender Yadav. The meeting further ignited speculation of her joining the BJP and getting re-elected to the Rajya Sabha as a saffron candidate.

--IANS