Madan Mitra leaves Mamata camp for rival TMC
The Mamata Banerjee faction of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Wednesday faced yet another loss on Wednesday with a senior party leader, former minister and close aide of the former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee switching sides to formally join the rival faction of the party led by Ritabrata Bhattacharya.
Madan Mitra had been one of the oldest confidants of TMC chief and had been her companion in all the major movements, even when she was the Youth Congress president.
Mitra, a popular leader who won from the Kamarhati Assembly seat even during the recent anti-TMC wave in the just-concluded elections, resigned from all the party posts on Wednesday, including the position of State general secretary and as the chief of all the trade union wings of the party.
Curiously, Mitra, who had all these days been siding with the former CM, switched sides a day after his two sons and wife received summons from the Enforcement Directorate. Mitra was also the first TMC minister and senior to be jailed in the Sharada chit fund case.
Soon after quitting, Mitra said that he was doing so in order to breathe some fresh air. “It was quite stuffy inside. Now I am can breathe more easily,” he said, dumping all the responsibility of the party’s debacle on TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. “I had told him to quit from his post for the time being and let the others take charge but he would not. Such is his arrogance. So arrogant is he that soon after the electoral loss, when we went to meet Mamata Banerjee at her residence, we, including the old and senior leaders, were asked to give Abhishek a standing ovation for his effort in the elections. It was height of it all,” Mitra said.
When asked as to whether he felt bad about leaving Mamata Banerjee’s hands, the former TMC minister also said he didn’t because he was in the TMC that was created by Mamata Banerjee. “It is the same TMC. I have just gone from one room to the other room,” he said.
With Mitra changing sides the Mamata Banerjee faction is left with about 18 out of 80 MLAs in the Opposition ranks.
The former CM, however, downplayed the defections, stating that several leaders were switching camps out of fear of central agencies like the ED. “It is not ideology or anything else it is the fear of Central agencies that is causing the rift but don’t worry we will rebuild things as more such defections are engineered the more sympathy we will get from the people,” she said.
