Bengal congress leader seeks Sonia Gandhi's intervention to stop defection of party MLAs

KOLKATA: Sitting Congress MLA and former West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) president Manas Bhunia on Tuesday met the AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and sought her intervention to prevent party MLAs from joining the ruling Trinamool Congress by quitting the Congress.
So far, nine Congress MLAs had left the party and joined Trinamool Congress. More Congress legislators are likely to quit the party before 2016 Assembly elections in the state.

Bhunia told ET after his meeting with Sonia Gandhi at the parliament on Tuesday that he had briefed the party president the recent development in which three sitting party MLAs had left the organisation and joined the ruling Trinamool Congress on July 21 during a rally addressed by Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. "I urged Sonia Ji to intervene to stop quitting the party by the sitting MLAs before 2016 assembly elections in the state," Bhunia said.

Bhunia also said that he had also urged the party chief to oppose Narendra Modi government's move to implement 100-days work scheme in some selected areas which were economically backward.

"Previous Congress government in Delhi used to provide jobs to the rural unemployed through the 100-day work scheme. But the Modi government is now planning to stop the scheme for every block in the country and instead, implement the same for economically backward areas. We oppose this vehemently," Bhunia added.

But the former WBPCC chief is much more worried about defection of party MLAs. "We had contested 65 assembly seats in 2011 and won 42. Later 9 of our sitting MLAs had left the organisation to join Trinamool Congress. As a result, we have now 33 MLAs in the state Assembly which is less than the CPIM. We had claimed the status of the opposition party in the state Assembly as we had originally more seats than the CPIM. But now, we can't reiterate our demand for opposition party status as we have lesser number of MLAs now," Bhunia said. He also conveyed this to Sonia Gandhi during the meeting.

Nine Congress MLAs who left the party to join Trinamool Congress include Ajoy De, who was also vice-president of the WBPCC, Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury, now a minister in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet, Humayun Kabir, Asit Mal, Mohammad Gholam Rabbani, Umapada Bauri, Soumitra Khan, who is now a Trinamool Congress MP, Imani Biswas and Sushil Roy.

Mamata had offered lucrative position in her party and government to all these Congress MLAs who had left the party to join her. The WBPCC president and party MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, however, described these MLAs as "political opportunists" and said these leaders did not have any respect for the Congress and it's political ideologies and joined the ruling party to get some immediate benefits.