Ex-WB Cong chief Manas Bhunia likely to join Trinamool on Monday

Kolkata: Former West Bengal Pradesh Congress chief Manas Bhunia, now a dissident leader, is likely to join the ruling Trinamool Congress on Monday, a senior ruling party leader said.

Bhunia, who has been gunning for state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan over the past couple of months, has made up his mind to cross over to the Trinamool next week. “Most probably, he will join on Monday,” the leader said.

A number of other Congress leaders and functionaries of its mass organisations are set to pitch their lot with the Trinamool along with Bhunia.

The Sabong lawmaker has been at loggerheads with the state party leadership over his decision to continue as the Public Accounts Committee chairman of the assembly, disregarding the legislators’ plea to him to step down.

Earlier, he had sought Mannan and Chowdhury’s removal from their posts.

Rejecting Mannan’s plea to appoint CPI-M’s Sujan Chakraborty as PAC charman, Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on July 4 announced Bhunia’s appointment to the post.

On July 8, Bhunia formally accepted his appointment as the PAC chairman, claiming that he was “never officially informed about the party’s stand”. He however had admitted of having received informal requests by the party to quit the post.

Bhunia had defied calls by Chowdhury, Mannan and the Congress legislature party to step down from the post.

Getting aggressive of late, Bhunia recently described Congress general secretary C.P. Joshi as a “sleeping (AICC) general secretary”, and lavished praise on state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, calling her the country’s best chief minister.