Kolkata: The top brass of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress had a high-level meeting with disgruntled party heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari at a building in the northern part of the city on Tuesday. The meeting was aimed at ironing out the differences between the leader and the party.
Besides Adhikari, the meeting also witnessed the presence of Trinamool’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee, party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay, veteran MP Sougata Roy and hired strategist Prashant Kishor.
“The meeting was extremely well. Suvendu said he is very much in the party. He is not going anywhere,” senior leader Sougata Roy, who was assigned by Mamata Banerjee to continue talks with the ex-transport minister, was quoted as saying by IANS.
According to Roy, he invited Abhishek Banerjee and Adhikari to sit across the table for talks. He said that the outcome of the two-hour-long session was “really good” and it was conveyed to the party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee immediately after the meeting.
“I had been constantly saying all along that he would not leave the party. He is with us,” Roy said.
It may be recalled that state Irrigation and Transport Minister Adhikari had stepped down as minister from the Mamata Banerjee-led cabinet on Friday morning after having differences with the party.
Adhikari has also left the chairperson’s post of Hooghly River Bridge Commissioner (HRBC) last week. The disgruntled leader and Abhishek Banerjee have traded barbs without naming anyone on several occasions in the recent past.
