Subrata Mukherjee not to resign as a Congress member of the West Bengal Assembly

Subrata Mukherjee not to resign as a Congress member of the West Bengal Assembly
AGENCIES

CALCUTTA, JULY 10: The new mayor of Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) Subrata Mukherjee today categorically said he had no plan to resign as a Congress member of the West Bengal Assembly following his election to the mayoral office on Trinamool Congress ticket.

``I am not going to resign since there is no such constitutional obligation. I will do it only when asked by Ms Mamata Banerjee,'' Mukherjee told newsmen.

Clarifying his stand, he said remaining a Congress member of the House did not go against his election to the mayoral post on Trinamool Congress ticket.``The polls in which I was elected to the Assembly was conducted by the Election Commission while the corporation election is a subject of the state Election Commission,'' he said.

The newly elected mayor pointed out that had there been any constitutional bar, he would not have been allowed to contest the CMC election on Trinamool Congress ticket.

Ridiculing the demand of few Congress legislators for his resignation on moral grounds, Mukherjee said the question was being raised by those in the party who had flouted all moral norms in Indira Gandhi's times.

Meanwhile, alarmed at the large-scale exodus to the Trinamool, West Bengal PCC president A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury today dissolved four district Congress committees (DCCs) and formed new ones.

DCCs in Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura and Jalpaiguri have been dissolved and new committees formed at the directive of Khan Chowdhury, who took the decision after a two-day meeting with former PCC chief Somen Mitra, senior party leaders Saugata Roy and others, particularly in view of the steady exodus from the party into the Trinamool, PCC sources said.

They added that the meeting, which took stock of the situation arising out of the gradual weakening of district units over the years, particularly with the emergence and popularity of the Trinamool, decided on revamping them by resorting to dissolution.

Senior PCC functionary Manas Bhuinya was today appointed the party's Midnapore district unit chief, while Nepal Chandra Mahato, Shyam Mukherjee and Biswaranjan Sarkar were named district presidents of Purulia, Bankura and Jalpaiguri, respectively.

Sources indicated that the PCC chief might effect ``certain changes'' in some other districts as well where the Congress base had eroded with the rise of the Trinamool.