To Keep Flock Together, Mamata To Hold Closed-Door Meeting With Party MLAs & MPs

Kolkata: With the trend of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders defecting to the BJP continuing, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has decided to hold a closed-door meeting with her party MPs and MLAs on January 29 at her Kalighat residence.

According to sources, the TMC supremo is likely to convey a strong message.

“Mamata Banerjee has already said that leaders are free to leave the party. It’s become normal for some TMC leader or the other leaving party posts or defecting to the saffron camp almost every day. The party supremo will take stock of who stands where,” sources informed.

Suvendu Adhikari, one of TMC’s heavyweights in and around Midnapore districts, quit Mamata’s cabinet and all party posts before joining BJP last month. His younger brother Soumendu and Shantipur MLA Arindam Bhattacharya followed in his footsteps earlier this month.

Though TMC managed to prevent disillusioned Birbhum MP Satabdi Roy from leaving and made her the party’s vice-president, they could not stop Howrah MLA Rajib Banerjee and Hooghly MLA Prabir Ghoshal from cutting off ties with the ruling party.

At the closed-door meeting, Mamata will also look into the issue of many in the party complaining that senior leaders are not allowing others to work.

TMC MLA Baishali Dalmiya, who was recently expelled from the party, has time and again claimed that ‘termites’ are destroying the Trinamool Congress.

Meanwhile, state Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee will visit Nandigram to take stock of the situation on the ground after Mamata announced she will contest in the assembly elections from there.

Known to be an astute politician, it was Subrata who pitched for a young Mamata Banerjee to be made the candidate from Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency in the 1984 general elections. Mamata, then with Congress, famously went on to beat CPI(M) heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee.

“I can feel the pulse of people and can get an idea as to what is going on in their mind. I will visit every block of Nandigram during my three-day visit to Nandigram from February 1. The TMC supremo is aware of my experience,” remarked Subrata.

Notably, Mamata’s Singur and Nandigram agitations were instrumental in TMC coming to power in 2011 by ending the Left Front’s 34-year rule.

After Mamata made public her decision to fight from Nandigram, Suvendu threw her an open challenge to beat him.

On Wednesday, Suvendu while addressing a joint rally in Jhargram with state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh, urged people to oust TMC’s ‘failed and corrupt’ government.