Trinamool Congress has expelled six leaders and their associates from the party for filing nominations for the Siliguri rural elections as independent candidates. The party today said that they had been involved in anti-party activities.
Paying no heed to the party’s guidelines, the six had filed their nomination papers as independent candidates against official candidates of the TMC for the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad elections. Despite several requests from the party, the leaders did not withdraw their nominations, a party source said.
Sources said the official candidates of the TMC were in “deep crisis” as the independent candidates from the party had been campaigning as ‘official’ candidates.
“As a result, party workers in the grassroots level were confused and many of them were demoralized,” a party leader said.
“State committee leaders had sought a report on the situation. We had sent a report pointing out the issues where grassroots level workers were demoralized.
Based on our report, party leader Aroop Biswas instructed us to expel the breakaway group,” Siliguri’s TMC president Papiya Ghosh said today.
Ms Ghosh, senior party leader and Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb, and other leaders like Aloke Chakravorty interacted with the Press and announced the expulsion of the leaders and workers. One of the disgruntled leaders, Aktar Ali, is contesting against the TMC official candidate in Phansidewa. The others include Tapasi Debnath and Hari Mohan Roy, it is learnt.
Mukhtar Alam of Phansidewa-II and Krishna Singh and Gagan Saiba of Matigara-II, along with their associates, were expelled at a time when BJP leaders are confidently contesting the three-tier rural elections. The rural elections for the Siliguri sub-division are scheduled to be conducted on 26 June, along with elections to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in the Hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong.