Ignoring his party's appeal to step down from the post of chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of West Bengal Assembly, senior Congress leader Manas Bhunia said he has accepted the post and has convened its meeting on Tuesday.
"I have accepted the post of PAC chairman of the Assembly and have convened a meeting of the committee tomorrow," Bhunia told reporters here. He said, "Let me work for a year. I am not ready to accept that I am academically weak. I have served almost in all assembly committees. I was also a member of PAC twice". On whether PAC members belonging to Congress and Left will attend tomorrow's meeting, he replied "I can't say now who will come and who will not. Tomorrow there will be a courtsey meeting".
Hinting at a tacit understanding between Bhunia and TMC, state Congress President Adhir Chowdhury had on Saturday said the party MLAs have taken a resolution to urge him to resign from the post. After the extended state committee meeting of Congress on Saturday, Chowdhury had said, "In the meeting out of the 44 MLAs, 39 MLAs 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 and it will appeal to Bhunia to step down from the post of PAC chairman.
"We will ask him not to fall in the trap of TMC. We will inform the AICC about the resolution adopted by our MLAs. We hope that Bhunia who claims to be a loyal soldier of Congress, will abide by decision of the party," he had said. The WBPCC chief also stated, "We will wait and see what happens and we have again decided to call a meeting of our party on July 15 again to decide on this matter".
Congress wanted to nominate Sujan Chakrabarty of CPI(M) with which it had contested the last assembly polls, for the PAC chairman's post. Chowdhury said CPI(M) had asked for the PAC chairman's post and "We had informed the AICC to take the call. AICC had decided to support Sujan Chakraborty and it was communicated to Bhunia."
Leader of opposition Abdul Mannan who was present in the meeting along with Chowdhury had said he never had intentions of insulting or humiliating Bhunia. Bhunia had, however, said Mannan had misled the party on the issue.
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