Saumitra Khan, Anupam Hazra expelled from TMC

Kolkata: Setting new standards of governance, the Trinamool Congress sacked two sitting MPs — Saumitra Khan and Anupam Hazra — for anti-party activities, Partha Chatterjee, the party's secretary general said on Wednesday.

Khan was the MP from Bishnupur in Bankura district while Hazra was the MP from Bolpur.

Partha Chatterjee stated that the party had cautioned both the MPs for their anti-party activities. Both had been very vocal on social media against the party. "Khan and Hazra did not have any contact with the party for the past one year. Earlier, the party had cautioned them and finally the decision was taken to remove them," he said.

Khan joined the BJP in New Delhi. Khan, who is close to Mukul Roy, alleged that the party was being run by "aunt and nephew." He said he had been targeted because he had raised his voice against the syndicates that are active in different areas. He challenged Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool Youth Congress president and party's MP, to contest from Bishnupur in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Rebuffing Khan, Abhishek Banerjee said: "If he has worked for the people in Bishnupur, then he should come up with the schemes where he had given money from the MPLAD."

Khan was elected as an MLA from Kotulpur Assembly seat in 2011 as a Congress candidate. Later he joined the Trinamool Congress and in 2014, became an MP.

Reacting to the removal of Khan from the party, Mayor Firhad Hakim said: "People had voted him because they knew that Mamata Banerjee's blessings were with him. Without her blessings, Khan is a zero and so is Bobby Hakim."

Hazra had been warned by party supremo Mamata Banerjee when he started writing against the TMC on social media. In the core committee meeting held in 2018 September, he was given a stricture by the party. But he flouted the party's diktats and continued his criticisms.