Party is asking Bhunia to resign from the post of PAC chairman, which he is unwilling to do.
Hinting at a tacit understanding between Congress leader Manas Bhunia and ruling TMC, West Bengal PCC President Adhir Chowdhury on Saturday said his party's MLAs have taken a resolution to appeal to him to resign from the post of PAC chairman.
Speaking to reporters after an extended state Congress committee meeting, Chowdhury said, "Today in the meeting out of the 44 MLAs, 39 were present. Some of them were absent for personal reasons. During the meeting it has been unanimously decided that the MLAs will adopt a resolution appealing Manas Bhunia to step down from the post of Public Accounts Committee chairman. "It was decided that we will ask him not to fall into the trap of Trinamool Congress. We will inform AICC about the resolution adopted by our MLAs. We hope that Manas Bhunia who claims to be a loyal soldier of Congress will abide by decision of the party," he said.
Chowdhury's comment comes in the backdrop of ongoing war of nerves between Congress state leadership and Bhunia over his appointment as PAC chairman, for which the party wanted to nominate CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty. "We will wait and see what happens. We have decided to call a meeting of our party again on July 15 to decide on this matter," he said. "His (Bhunia's) only condition was he wanted a car. We promised him that (we) would also provide him with a car. But on July 4, after entering the Assembly things took a different turn," Chowdhury said.
On the basis of the turn of events it seems that "some kind of pressure" is being put on Bhunia to divide the Opposition camp, he said. "We had seen on July 4 an arrest warrant was issued against Bhunia in a false case. He met Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and later in the day Bhunia was appointed PAC chairman. There is some kind of tacit understanding," Chowdhury said. "Bhunia is raising questions about technicality but the question is about principle and moral values. The question is whether you will abide by the decision of the party or play into the hands of TMC," he said.
Replying to criticism by Bhunia over the decision to support Chakraborty not being taken in a CLP meeting, Chowdhury said, "There is no need to take such decisions in a CLP meeting. And yes we have informed the matter to AICC, because of the principle of alliance politics. "CPI(M) has asked for the PAC post and that is why we had informed the AICC to take the call. AICC had taken the call to support Sujan Chakraborty. It was communicated to Manas Bhunia, who had agreed to become the chairman of assurance committee and later resign from the post of PAC member," he said.
Leader of Opposition, Congress leader Abdul Mannan who was present at the meeting, said he never had intentions of insulting or humiliating Manas Bhunia. "If I had the intention of humiliating Manas Bhunia then I would have never asked him to file the nomination for PAC membership. I wanted to keep the option open for appointing Bhunia as its chairman, in case our party high command denies to support Sujan Chakraborty's candidature.
"But after (Congress) high command decided to support CPI(M), I had nothing much to do," he said.
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 "Manas Bhunia")
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