Amidst Bhunia debacle, PAC to hold first meeting today

Calling Tuesday’s meet as a “courtesy meeting”, Bhunia said he would talk to the PAC members and would fix the date of the next meeting. This has virtually shot down to any possibility of Bhunia stepping down from his post, as has been demanded by his party colleagues over the past few days. 

The MLAs had sent a letter to Bhunia asking him to step down from the post on Saturday.

Lashing out at West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Chowdhury – who had said on Saturday that Bhunia wanted the post to get “an official car with beacon light” – Bhunia said, “I have been the PAC chairman earlier and have no hankering for a car with beacon light.

Moreover, I consider myself to be the fittest person for the post because of my educational qualification”.Bhunia said that all the party functionaries had not been invited to attend the meeting on Saturday.

Only a few handpicked members were present and he had told the leadership that he would be out of town for two days. Bhunia said he would be the chairman for one year and had failed to “understand the haste of some leaders to give CPI(M) the post.”

He reiterated that the All India Congress Committee did not have any time to think about such a small matter.

He further said that a meeting to nominate him for the post was held and since then no meeting was held to replace him with Sujan Chakraborty of CPI(M).

Meanwhile, a news was published in Ganashakti – the CPI(M) mouthpiece – in its edition on Sunday refuted the claim of Adhir Chowdhury that Sujan Chakraborty had requested him for the post.

Elsewhere, a rally was held by the Left Front on Monday to protest against the spiralling price hike, though Congress was not invited to the rally.

Left Front partners had earlier told their chairman Biman Bose that they would not participate in the rally if Congress was invited.

Accordingly, it was decided that Congress would not be invited in the future. The Left Front leaders criticised the state government for its failure to control price hike.