There is an outcry in Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the crushing defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections. Every day someone is resigning from the party or post.
58 out of 80 TMC MLAs rebelled and even the opposition elected a new leader. Amidst all this, now Mamata Banerjee is preparing to do Delhi politics. For this she wants to go to Lok Sabha. According to the existing equations, Mamata Banerjee will have to get the resignation of one of her MPs to reach the Lok Sabha and if sources are to be believed, she even asked TMC’s Baharampur MP Yusuf Pathan for this, but Pathan refused.
India TV has quoted sources as saying that Mamata Banerjee, who wanted to go to the Lok Sabha, got a shock. She wanted Yusuf Pathan to resign from Baharampur seat and when by-elections are held there, he himself should contest as a candidate. When Pathan was talked to for this, he flatly refused to resign. Baharampur has more than 50 percent Muslim population. In such a situation, Mamta believes that if she contests elections from here, it will be a safe seat. But this is not so easy, because former Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary was also an MP from this place for a long time. He was defeated by Yusuf Pathan in the last Lok Sabha elections.
Even if Yusuf Pathan had resigned, it would not have been so easy for Mamata Banerjee to win the elections. Because Adhir Ranjan Choudhary would have also been in the fray from Congress and being an old face from there, he would have definitely got the benefit, but even before all this, Yusuf Pathan refused to resign. Now, unless Mamata convinces another MP to resign, it is impossible for her to reach the Lok Sabha. According to sources, 20 TMC MPs of Lok Sabha are also preparing to leave the party.
Firhad Hakim resigns from the post of Mayor of Kolkata
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress suffered another setback. Senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim on Friday resigned from the post of mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). Hakim said that he was not able to work properly, hence he took this decision. He said he resigned from the post ‘with his head held high with pride’ after getting the consent of party chief Mamata Banerjee. Amid the ongoing political turmoil within the Trinamool Congress following its defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Hakim, a former state minister and one of the most prominent faces of the party, submitted his resignation. At the press conference held before his resignation, Hakim expressed satisfaction over his nearly seven-and-a-half-year tenure as the civic body chief and thanked KMC officials and the people of Kolkata for helping the city come out of some of its most challenging phases.