Veteran Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and several party MLAs attended administrative meetings chaired by BJP leaders on Tuesday, raising fresh speculation about unrest within the TMC following its defeat in the recent Assembly elections.
Dastidar, along with TMC MLAs Anisur Rahaman Bidesh, Bina Mondal and Abdul Matin Mohamed, attended a meeting chaired by CM Suvendu Adhikari in Nadia district.
“We have not received any invitations (to attend administrative meetings) in the last five years. But I said on the first day (after coming to power) that we will invite all legislators of the respective areas and some selected MPs. Today the Barasat MP was invited. She attended the meeting. Some legislators from the opposition party also joined,” Adhikari said.
“She (Dastidar) was allowed to speak. She cooperated. She shook hands. She said she was invited to such meetings (organized by the previous TMC government) even in the past but was never allowed to speak. We want people to reap the benefits of a dual-engine government. Let the rivalry remain only during the polls,” he added.
“It is an administrative meeting. Management is for everyone. It is not a party meeting,” Dastidar told reporters before attending the event.
These developments come days after Dastidar resigned from the post of Barasat district president of the TMC and publicly blamed corruption for the party’s electoral defeat.
She was removed by the TMC from the post of party’s chief whip in the Lok Sabha. At the meeting, she was seen sharing the dais with Adhikari and other ministers of the newly formed BJP government. In North Bengal’s Siliguri, 13 TMC MLAs attended another administration meeting chaired by BJP MLA and former Union minister Nisith Pramanik.
None of the TMC leaders responded to HT’s calls or messages.
