Kolkata: Amid the ongoing internal strife in the Trinamool Congress (TMC), its supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister has convened an emergency meeting of the party’s top officials at her residence Saturday evening, sources in the ruling camp said. According to sources, just six senior leaders – TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, secretary-general Partha Chatterjee, West Bengal party president Subrata Bakshi, and ministers Firhad Hakim, Aroop Biswas and Chandrima Bhattacharya – have been asked to attend the meeting.
“The meeting will be held tomorrow (Saturday) at 5.00pm to discuss the present political situation in the party. The statements and counter-statements that are being given by some leaders have not gone down well with the party supremo. This has to stop somewhere. Our party supremo is likely to give out a message to all the leaders,” a senior TMC leader said on condition of anonymity.
The sources also said that Mamata Banerjee, who is yet to form a new working committee of the TMC, is likely to discuss strategies for the upcoming civic polls February 28.
The infighting in the ruling TMC escalated Friday as leaders considered to be close to Abhishek took to Twitter to advocate the ‘one person one post’ policy, according to which a member of the party should be allowed to hold just one position. A section of old guards, including Hakim, termed the move as violation of party discipline.
The recent spat comes in the backdrop of the perceived power struggle in the TMC and apparent differences between the generation-next leaders and the old-timers.
Hakim, who is the West Bengal Housing and Transport minister as well as the city mayor, said the party does not endorse any such theory. He said some leaders have given out ‘misleading’ posts.
Sources said that during the meeting Abhishek may express the desire to step down from his organisational responsibilities. “He may well resign from the post of national general secretary on the pretext that he wants to concentrate on his Lok Sabha constituency, Diamond Harbour from where he has been elected to the Parliament.