Newly-formed core committee in Birbhum holds its first meeting

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) newly-formed core committee in Birbhum held its first meeting on Sunday and it was unanimously decided that the party organisation in Birbhum will function as per the advice of Anubrata Mondal.

The core committee has also supported Mondal as he called several activities of the party from May 25-27. It was also learnt that amid the core committee meeting, Mondal received a phone call from party supremo Mamata Banerjee where the latter might have given some suggestions on the future course of action of the party ahead of the next year’s Assembly elections. What exactly was Banerjee’s message to Mondal was not, however, clear. In Birbhum, it was often said that there has been a conflict of opinion between Anubrata Mondal and Kajal Sheikh. Both the leaders took part in Sunday’s meeting. After Anubrata Mondal was arrested by the CBI in connection with its probe into a cattle smuggling racket in 2022, the Trinamool Congress had set up a district core committee to look after organisational tasks in the district. However, Mondal remained the party’s district president.

Trinamool Congress on last Friday announced an organisational reshuffle in the districts. The post of district president in Birbhum has been removed and a core committee has been formed for Birbhum which will discharge the activities of the district president. Even after Mondal returned to Birbhum after being awarded bail, the core committee continued to function. The new core committee has seven members. Though, the post of the district president was kept vacant. The post of district chairperson in Birbhum remains, with senior MLA Ashis Banerjee continuing in that role.

Avijit Sinha, Anubrata Mondal, Asish Banerjee, Chandranath Sinha, Bikash Roychowdhury, Sudipto Ghosh and Kajal Sheikh made it to the core committee. Two MPs from Birbhum — Satabdi Roy and Asit Mal — were made invittee members. Asish Banerjee had called for the core committee meeting on Sunday which did not happen in the recent past. Invitee member and party MP Shatabdi Roy could not attend the meeting for some personal reasons while Chandranath Sinha also remained absent as he was preoccupied with some party work.