Congress Legislative Party demands Bhunia’s ouster

The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) on Friday demanded expulsion of party’s MLA and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Manas Bhunia.

Talking to newsmen, Abdul Mannan said the CLP members unanimously decided to write a letter to AICC to expel Bhunia for his anti-party activities. “Such indiscipline is not expected from a senior leader like Bhunia. This is affecting the party’s rank and file and so the CLP leaders have decided to write to AICC for his expulsion,” he said. Bhunia was present in Friday’s meeting. He said he would not comment on the matter.

The differences between Bhunia and Mannan came to light over the post of PAC chairman. Congress had sent Bhunia’s name along with the names of Sukhvilas Burma and Asit Mitra. Of the three as Bhunia’s name topped the list the Speaker of West Bengal Legislative Assembly Biman Banerjee appointed Bhunia as the chairman of PAC.

Mannan demanded that Sujan Chakraborty of CPI(M) should be made the chairman of PAC. Supporting him, WBPCC president, Adhir Chowdhury said Chakraborty’s name was proposed by AICC. He said Surya Kanta Misra had requested him to propose Chakraborty’s name. However, both Misra and Chakraborty had denied that they had requested Chowdhury to propose the latter’s name.

AICC called Bhunia to Delhi and meeting between him, Mannan and CP Joshi failed to resolve the impasse. Earlier, Joshi had requested Bhuniya to relinquish the post. Bhunia who was a PAC chairman during the Left Front regime had then said as the post was for one year Chakraborty could become the chairman after that.

Political experts said the mudslinging would affect the party in the state. “There is massive erosion of support base of Congress and such act will further create a dent in party’s popularity. It is unfortunate that the party has failed to come up with programmes to highlight loopholes of Trinamool Congress and instead is involved in infighting.”

The biggest speculation in the political circles is whether Bhunia will join Trinamool Congress. Bhunia is believed to have good relation with Mamata Banerjee and was the Irrigation and Waterways minister in her Cabinet for some time when she came to power in 2011. When asked Bhunia said:“ Let’s see what happens in the future.”