The Trinamool Congress is embroiled in a party feud over the list of candidates for the 106 municipal elections in West Bengal. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with party leaders on Saturday afternoon to settle the dispute. With the exception of the post of president, she abolished all the top posts of the party at the national level. Mamata herself is the chairperson. Instead, a 20-member National Working Committee has been formed under Mamata’s leadership. This committee will handle the responsibility of the party for the time being.
The special meeting was held at Mamata’s home office in Kalighat, South Kolkata. It said a 20-member national working committee would be headed by Mamata until further notice. So far 18 names have been announced. Later, Mamata will name four more members. The 18 members of the committee are: Mamata Banerjee, Amit Mitra, Perth Chatterjee, Subrata Bakshi, Sudip Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Buluchik Baraik, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Kakli Ghosh Dastidar, Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, Jyotri Moti, Jyotri , Anubrat Mandal and Gautam Dev. The meeting was also informed that Mamata would later share the posts and duties of the committee members.
The incident started with the announcement of the names of the party candidates in the upcoming 106 municipal elections of West Bengal this year. Until now, all elections in West Bengal (Lok Sabha, Legislative Assembly and local government elections) have been overseen by grassroots-appointed voter Prashant Kishore or PIC’s IPAC or the Indian Political Action Committee. They basically talk to the team and make decisions about it. Secretary General of the party Perth Chatterjee, state president of the party Subrata Bokshi and others made the list of candidates of the party in this year’s municipal elections.
On the other hand, Abhishek Banerjee’s IPAC also prepares another list as per the rules. But Mamata acknowledges the list of Perth Chatterjee and Subrata Boxer. But before their list could be published, the IPAC list was published on the website, which led to a heated argument within the party. Trinamool started a statewide movement to get Mamata’s list in different parts of the state.
In the face of this movement, Mamata said that the list of Perth Chatterjee and Subrata Boxer is the list of Trinamool. Those whose names are on the list will be eligible to be the grassroots candidates in the municipal elections. As a result, there was an extreme dispute with IPAC over this incident. News spread in the state that this time IPAC is being removed.
Mamata, meanwhile, told reporters at the Kolkata airport on February 8 before leaving for the Uttar Pradesh election campaign that other candidate lists published on the party’s official website, Facebook page and WhatsApp had been rejected. He mentioned that the list was signed by party leaders Perth Chatterjee and Subrata Boxi.
Allegedly, the list was published by IPAC, an organization of grassroots adviser and voter Prashant Kishore. On learning this, the Chief Minister dismissed the list. And with that list, dissatisfaction spread among the grassroots across the state. The movement begins. With this, there was a demand to cancel the list in different areas of the state.
It is to be mentioned that Abhishek Bandyopadhyay brought IPAC, the organization of voter-friendly Prashant Kishore, to this state. He hired IPAC for the Trinamool victory in the state after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in a multi-million dollar deal in July 2020. With the cancellation of that IPAC list, the distance between the state government and the IPAC has increased.