Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee will contest from Bhabanipur Assembly seat
in South Kolkata to get elected to the legislature.
Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee told PTI that state
minister for PWD and Transport Subrata Bakshi, who had won
from Bhabanipur seat, submitted his resignation today to
enable the chief minister to contest from the constituency.
"Mr Bakshi has submitted his resignation to me today and
this has been accepted," the Speaker said.
Mamata Banerjee is still the leader of Trinamool Congress
in the Lok Sabha and as per the rules she could submit her
resignation even after getting elected, Trinamool Congress
general secretary Mukul Roy, who is now in Delhi, said.
Bhabanipur Assembly seat falls under the South Kolkata
Lok Sabha constituency which has been represented by Mamata
for long a time.
Mamata, who did not contest Assembly polls in May, this
year, is required to get elected as a member of the state
Assembly within six months.
She took oath as chief minister on May 20 heading a
Trinamool Congress and Congress coalition government following
her party's landslide victory in the polls.
Today's development put at rest speculation of the past
few weeks that she was likely to contest from Behala East,
which is represented by Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee.
Bakshi, a close aide of Banerjee and state Trinamool
Congress president, had won from the Bhabanipur seat in this
year's Asembly election defeating his nearest rival Narayan
Jain by nearly 50,000 votes.
PTI
First Published: Friday, August 19, 2011, 16:09