|HT|
Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to name office-bearers of the party’s newly formed national working committee on Friday as she has convened the panel’s first meeting. “She may also announce the names of the mayors of the four civic bodies, which the TMC won,” said a TMC leader, who did not want to be named.
Banerjee last week formed the 20-member committee after dissolving the previous panel amid rumblings over the “one person, one post” policy. The party adopted the policy last year. Abhishek Banerjee, the chief minister’s nephew, has been advocating the policy.
The new working committee includes former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, Amit Mitra, and Abhishek Banerjee, who was in June 2021 appointed as TMC’s national general secretary. Abhishek Banerjee’s post was dissolved along with the previous working committee.
Members of Parliament Derek O’ Brien and Saugata Roy are among the prominent names dropped from the new panel. The 2017 panel included Suvendu Adhikari, who has since joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The TMC has positioned itself as a national force capable of taking on the BJP since it returned to power in Bengal for the third time last summer. Abhishek Banerjee spearheads the TMC’s expansion into other states.
TMC swept the elections to Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Asansol, and Chandannagar civic bodies this week. It won the Siliguri Municipal Corporation for the first time.
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