Kolkata: TMC Tells EC Mamata Still Its Chief To Foil Rebels' Bid For Party's Control
According to the list dated as on June 20 this year, Ms Banerjee remains the TMC chairperson while her close aide Subrata Bakshi continues as the vice-president: Reports
KOLKATA: Reeling under an unprecedented internal revolt, the Trinamul Congress has sent the Election Commission (EC) a list of its top office-bearers, starting with Mamata Banerjee as the party's founder-chairperson, to scuttle its rebel MLAs' bid to remove her from her position and take control of the organisation by moving the poll panel in future.
Banerjee's loyalists claimed on Tuesday that they had sent the list of TMC national working committee members to the EC on Monday evening as soon as she came to know about the dissident camp’s meeting at a hotel in New Town to dissolve the party’s apex forum “with a flimsy excuse” to unseat her and her MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
According to the list dated as on June 20 this year, Banerjee remains TMC chairperson while her close aide Subrata Bakshi continues as vice-president with Abhishek Banerjee staying as general secretary and the parliamentary party leader in Lok Sabha.
Others are two Rajya Sabha MPs — Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen — who have been appointed joint secretaries recently to assist Banerjee and Subhasish Chakraborty, who was made treasurer in place of Aroop Biswas, in a massive organisational revamp by the TMC supremo on June 5.
The TMC national working committee has 17 other functionaries. They are Chandrima Bhattacharya, Amit Mitra, Rajesh Pati Tripathi, Asima Patra, Moloy Ghatak, Gautam Deb, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Bulu Chik Baraik, Mukul Sangma, Baiswanor Chattopadhyay, Birbaha Hansda, Kalyan Banerjee, Saugata Roy, Nadimul Haque, Madan Mitra, Biman Banerjee, Mahua Moitra and Kunal Ghosh.
Chandrima Bhattacharya has been mentioned as state TMC president and Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay Leader of the Opposition.
The TMC camp’s move assumes significance as the new camp's chief Ritabrata Banerjee hinted on Monday evening at moving the EC to about the dissolution of their party's national working committee and formation of a fresh panel to take control of the organisation.
“We have functioned and convened this special session as per the norms. It is for the EC to decide what is wrong or right,” he said. On Tuesday evening the rebel TMC MLAs led by Ritabrata and his deputy, Sandipan Saha, visited the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal in the city and met the EC office to discuss their stake on their party's control. The delegation had Javed Ahmed Khan and another MLA.
They submitted a letter of 11 pages identifying themselves as 'real' TMC and stating their party's new address-- 2031, Rajdanga Main Road, GA- 124, 3rd Floor, Kolkata 107.
They also gave the details of their new organisational structure with the names of the functionaries appointed a day before and urged the EC not to entertain any communication from their rival camp in TMC among nine issues.
