Two West Bengal BJP MPs resign as MLAs

In West Bengal, BJP Lok Sabha MPs Jagannath Sarkar and Nisith Pramanik on Wednesday tendered their resignation as members of the state assembly, to which they were elected in the recent polls.Sarkar and Pramanik, MPs of Ranaghat and Cooch Behar respectively, went to the assembly and submitted their resignation letters to Speaker Biman Banerjee.Pramanik said that they are quitting as MLAs as per the directive of the BJP leadership.The saffron party had also fielded two other Lok Sabha MPs - Union minister Babul Supriyo and Locket Chatterjee and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta but they lost the election.

The  party bagged 77 seats while the Trinamool Congress secured a landslide victory winning 213 of the 292 constituencies that went to polls. Election was countermanded in two seats due to the death of candidates. "The BJP has risen from just three MLAs (in the 2016 elections) to 77 MLAs. In order to add experience in running the government, some MPs had been fielded," Sarkar said. Pramanik said that they cannot remain members of both the Lok Sabha and the state assembly simultaneously. Dinhata and Santipur assembly segments fall within the respective Lok Sabha constituencies of Pramanik and Sarkar.