Agartala, May 28: Former BJP MLA Ashis Das, who last year quit the saffron party and joined the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), on Friday resigned from the TMC alleging the party’s ‘internal groupism’.

Severely criticising AITC’s National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, Das said that there is no democratic environment both in BJP and Trinamool Congress.

A leader of the Scheduled Caste community, 44-year-old Das made the announcement to quit the AITC two days after the Election Commission declared the schedule of by-elections to four assembly constituencies in Tripura including Surma (SC) from where he was elected to the assembly in 2018 Assembly polls as a BJP candidate.

Due to his defection, Das lost his assembly membership paving way for by-poll in Surma assembly constituency, reserved for the scheduled caste.

Before joining the AITC in Agartala, Das went to Kolkata and offered puja at Kalighat temple and shaved his head as an “act of atonement” for being associated with “a communal party BJP” and then highly praised AITC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Besides Das, two other BJP MLAs, Sudip Roy Barman and Ashis Kumar Saha quit the party and the assembly membership following open differences with former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, who resigned from the top post on May 14 following the instructions of the party’s central leadership, which is yet to disclose the exact reasons.

Roy Barman, also a former BJP Minister, and Saha joined the Congress in February this year.