Sabyasachi Dutta resigns ahead of no-confidence tabling

Kolkata: Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta resigned from his post on Thursday. He had earlier challenged the no-confidence motion brought against him by 35 councillors of the civic body in the High Court.

The High Court had issued an order on Wednesday, which stayed the tabling of the no-confidence motion scheduled for Thursday.

The Court had instructed the chairman to send a fresh notice to the Mayor, which had earlier been sent by the joint municipal commissioner of the civic body.

The court on Thursday observed that BMC should table and discuss the no-confidence motion on Friday. Seeing that all the councillors who had signed the no-confidence motion have stood their ground, Dutta resigned on Thursday afternoon in sheer haste, just to avoid the tabling of the no-confidence motion on Friday.

He sent his resignation to the chairman of BMC Krishna Chakraborty and surrendered his official vehicle to the commissioner of BMC.

Dutta, being the president of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL), had criticised the state government for its failure to pay the Dearness Allowance of the employees in a recently held meeting.

Following the event, thirty five councillors wrote a letter to Krishna Chakraborty, expressing no-confidence in the Mayor.

Talking to newsmen, Dutta said he will continue to support the genuine cause of the employees. He alleged that he did not receive any cooperation from the state government, particularly the Land and Land Reforms department headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to stop filling of a waterbody in the Rajarhat-Gopalpur area.

State Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim had said after the councillors moved the no-confidence motion that had he been in Dutta's place, he would have resigned.

The differences between Dutta and Deputy Mayor Tapas Chatterjee is also a matter of public knowledge. Dutta had defeated Chatterjee in the 2011 Assembly election, when the latter fought as a CPI(M) candidate from the New Town-Rajarhat seat.

Dutta had even refused to share the dais with Chatterjee at a function organised to celebrate the birth anniversary of Dr BC Roy on July 1.

Dutta is also close to BJP leader Mukul Roy, who had visited him before the Lok Sabha polls and there was a rumour that Dutta would join the saffron party. After the councillors brought the no-confidence motion against Dutta, Roy had met him again.