BJP MLA Biswajit Das today switched to the ruling Trinamool Congress in Bengal, becoming the third lawmaker to return since Mamata Banerjee’s big victory in the April-May state polls.

Biswajit Das had moved to the BJP in an exodus of Trinamool Congress leaders just before the election.

Like many others who claim to have “realized their mistake”, he has now joined the reverse tide from the BJP to Mamata Banerjee’s party.

Tanmay Ghosh, another MLA who had moved to the BJP and won, returned to the Trinamool on Monday.

The biggest homecoming was that of Mukul Roy, the BJP’s first import in Bengal, who returned to the Trinamool in June after four years.

In Bengal politics, Mukul Roy’s return was symbolic of the Trinamool’s resurgence, and, as the party had calculated, gave other defectors like him a lot to think about.

The return of the defectors is key as the Trinamool preps for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Its wants to prevent a repeat of 2019, when the BJP scored big gains at the Trinamool’s cost. Mukul Roy had a big hand in it, but the BJP could not sustain the gains by the time it came to the state election.

Mamata Banerjee won a third term with the Trinamool scoring 213 of the state’s 294 assembly seats. The BJP put up a tough challenge but was limited to a distant second, with 77 seats. With the latest exit, the BJP’s strength in the assembly is down to 72.