BJP's Saumitra Khan Sends Legal Divorce Notice To Wife Sujata Mondal After She Joins TMC

In high-octane events unfolding four months prior to the 2021 Bengal assembly election, Bharatiya Janata Party's Saumitra Khan reportedly sent a legal divorce notice to his wife Sujata Mondal on Tuesday, a day after she joined the opposition Trinamool Congress party. According to reports, news of Mondal's TMC joining on Monday prompted Khan to publicly state that he would divorce her, further appealing her to drop the 'Khan' surname. Read more here.

Mondal's TMC joining came as a surprising twist in the run-up to the Bengal polls since she was previously associated with the BJP alongside her husband till last year. Khan, who had himself been a member of TMC prior to his BJP joining, had famously won his Bishnupur constituency in Bengal after Mondal single-handedly campaigned for him in the 2019 election.

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Saumitra Khan Alleges "Mental Torture" By Mondal

According to news agency ANI, Khan's divorce notice to Mondal has been sent by his lawyer Sameer Kumar. The papers mentioned that the couple's marriage was solemnised in 2016 under the Hindu Marriage Act as per Hindu rituals. Khan has alleged "mental and emotional torture... beyond the level of tolerance" on part of Mondal, stating it among the reasons for divorce. The notice presses Mondal for a mutually consensual divorce within 30 days, failing which Khan would initiate proceedings in the court.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Saumitra Khan has sent a legal divorce notice to wife Sujata Mondal Khan.

She joined Trinamool Congress in Kolkata yesterday. https://t.co/vN9iy6xCiv

— ANI (@ANI) December 22, 2020

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Sujata Mondal Reacts To Divorce Threat

Reacting to Khan's appeal for divorce, Mondal has said, "When politics enter your personal lives, it becomes bad for the relationship. Saumitra is in the company of bad people from BJP who are trying to instigate him against me. The party that abolished triple talaq is asking Saumitra to divorce me today."

On Monday, she had justified her TMC shift, saying, "I want to breathe. I want respect. I want to be an able leader of an able party. I want to work with my beloved Didi ...I hope he will realise one day. Who knows, he might be back in the Trinamool one day.”

Khan, meanwhile, had broken down at a press meet on the day of her joining, reportedly lamenting that a ten-year relationship "has ended because of politics," and further accused TMC of "breaking" his family. Following news of her TMC joining, Mondal’s car and house security services at their Bishnupur residence were reportedly withdrawn.