TMC Panel holds meeting to take stock of poll results

Trinamool Congress leaders who were involved in infighting or found to have worked against the party’s nominees in the recently concluded Assembly election will face stern action. The first meeting of the eight member committee set up to find out the culprits was held on Wednesday afternoon.

The committee was constituted by TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and comprised Subrata Bakshi, Mukul Roy, Sovan Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim and Partha Chatterjee as members. The meeting was held in the office of Subrata Bakshi at Priyanath Mullick Road.

Though the party won 211 seats, the highest ever by a single party since Independence, Chief Minister Banerjee is not happy with the results in some constituencies. She had campaigned in all 294 constituencies and wants to find out what led people to withdraw their support in some constituencies.

In Durgapur, the party lost both its seats. Apurba Mukherjee, Mayor of Durgapur Municipal Corporation was defeated in Durgapur West, while Pradip Majumdar, Banerjee’s advisor in Agriculture, was defeated in 

Burdwan East. The rallies in these constituencies, which were addressed by Mamata Banerjee, were overcrowded. 

The district leaders also had assured her the candidates would win. It was learnt that she was utterly unhappy with the district leadership and wanted to know the reason why people had withdrawn their support. After the results were out, it was seen that TMC had lost in most of the wards having party’s councillors.

In Malda, two ministers, Sibitri Mitra and Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury were defeated and the district does not have any representation in the ministry. Banerjee was disappointed by the defeat of Manish Gupta and Chandrima Bhattacharya from Jadavpur and Dum Dum North seats.

Though both of them have been rehabilitated, Banerjee wants a report from the leaders in Jadavpur. Similarly, Baichung Bhutia was defeated by Ashok Bhattacharya of CPI(M) in Siliguri. Bhutia had already given a report to Banerjee where he pointed out that infighting in the party might had led to his defeat. Soham Chakraborty and Nirdeb Roy were defeated by 600 and 540 votes respectively 

in Barjora and Tamluk. It was learnt that reports from all district committees were sought and the committee members would analyse them to find out why they exactly lost.

Once reports from all the districts will arrive, the committee members will take them up and submit a final report to the Chief Minister. The leaders said any one found guilty would not be spared.