Kolkata, April 17 -- On March 24, when chief minister Mamata Banerjee was on her way to north Bengal to launch her party's election campaign, Suvendu Adhikari, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator and leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly promised to deliver her a 'gift'.

On that day, Bangshibadan Barman, a Rajbanshi leader who heads one of the factions of the Greater Cooch Behar Peoples' Association (GCPA), Arghya Roy Pradhan, a two-time Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA from Cooch Behar district, and Girija Shankar Roy, a local Rajbanshi leader and a close aide of Barman, joined the BJP in the presence of Adhikari and Samik Bhattacharya, state BJP president.

The importance of the Rajbanshi community

The Rajbanshi c...