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Congress still paying price for expelling Mamata Banerjee: Ex- Bengal PCC chief
Former West Bengal Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya recalled that he was returning to Kolkata from his constituency when the then state Congress chief Somen Mitra called him up and said he had been asked to expel Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata: The Congress is still paying the price for expelling Mamata Banerjee in 1997 under orders from the then national president Sitaram Kesri, the party’s former West Bengal state unit chief Pradip Bhattacharya said on Saturday.
“I was a Parliament member from Serampore at that time. I was returning to Kolkata from my constituency when the then PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) president Somen Mitra called me up and said he had been asked to expel Mamata. I strongly opposed the decision. But Somen Mitra was under pressure to execute it since the order came from Sitaram Kesri,” Bhattacharya said at an event.
A video of his speech was shared on social media. Congress state chief Subhankar Sarkar was seated on the dais when Bhattacharya was speaking. Bhattacharya was Bengal PCC president from 2011 to 2014. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms.
“Congress is still paying the price for expelling Mamata. I don’t know when we will be able to emerge from this dungeon,” Bhattacharya added, indirectly referring to the current state of the party in West Bengal which it last ruled from 1972 to 1977 when Siddhartha Shankar Ray was the chief minister.
Although Congress was a formidable opposition party in Bengal during the Left Front rule from 1977 to 2011 - the year Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to power - it currently has no legislator and has only one Lok Sabha member from the state.
The Left Front, which is now a Congress ally, has no representation at the legislative assembly and the Lok Sabha. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, has emerged as the main opposition force in the state.
Although TMC is part of the INDIA coalition alongside Congress, differences between leaders of the two parties surfaced during several recent elections.
No state Congress leader commented on Bhattacharya’s remark.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said Bhattacharya did not focus on the real reason behind Banerjee’s expulsion.
Ghosh said: “Mamata Banerjee had taken an uncompromising stand against the CPI(M) and its Left Front partners. This was not acceptable to the Congress leadership at that time. They expelled her in December 1997, and she formed TMC on January 1, 1998, to pursue her political goal. She subsequently overthrew the Left Front.”
