Mamata pulls up party leaders from Nadia, says infighting responsible for poor show

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday lambasted the party leaders from Nadia and held infighting responsible for the party's poll debacle in the district in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Banerjee held a meeting at Trinamool Bhavan which was attended by TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee and all the leaders of Nadia district upto the block level on Friday afternoon.

Of the two seats in Nadia, the Trinamool Congress has retained the Krishnanagar seat while BJP has won the Ranaghat seat. Banerjee had nominated Rupali Biswas, widow of Satyajit Biswas, party's MLA from Krishnaganj who was murdered in February. The Trinamool Congress even lost the by-election to the saffron party.

Banerjee said due to infighting, the people had rejected the party despite tremendous development which had been carried out in the district. She said she had told the party leaders repeatedly to give up infighting and put up a united fight against the BJP in the Lok Sabha poll. "But despite my warning, the leaders continued with the infighting and the result was reflected in the result," she said.

Earlier, Partha Chaterjee, who is the observer for Nadia, read out the report on the party's poll debacle in the district. She asked Rajib Banerjee and Shankar Singh, two observers in Nadia, to introduce new leaders replacing the idle ones.

Banerjee also maintained that the party will not spare the leaders who have taken "cut money" and instructed them to return it. "I am not going to spare those who had taken money. Return the cut money immediately," she said.

The TMC chief once again urged the leaders to bury the hatchets and work together to stop BJP's onslaught. She asked why the party leaders had failed to stop the communal politics of BJP. She also added that the leaders have lost contacts with the masses and urged them to renew the ties immediately.

The Trinamool Congress on Friday appointed five leaders to look after the Lok Sabha constituencies in North 24-Parganas. Though Jyotipriya Mallick, the state Food minister, who is the president of the party's North 24-Parganas unit has not been removed but at the same time, five leaders have been asked to look after five Lok Sabha constituencies in the district.

Of the five Lok Sabha seats, Trinamool has retained Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat and lost Bongaon and Barrackpore seats to the BJP. Moreover, there has been tremendous violence in vast areas surrounding Bhatpara.

Trinamool has lost control over Bhatpata,Halisahar and Noapara municipalities after the councillors switched over to BJP. An administrator has been deployed to look after Naihati municipality.

It has been decided that Govinda Das will look after Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency while Sujit Bose will look after Basirhat, Tapas Roy will oversee Dum Dum, Rathin Ghosh will look after Barasat and Nirmal Ghosh will look after Barrakpore Lok Sabha seats.