Thaindian News

Kolkata, Feb 5 (IANS) The West Bengal Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Thursday wrote to the state assembly speaker demanding action against a Congress legislator who joined the Trinamool Congress in the recent past.”We’ve written to state assembly Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim demanding removal of Congress legislator Sudip Bandopadhyay from the post of chairman of the state assembly’s Standing Committee on Commerce and Industries,” state CLP leader Manas Bhuniya told mediapersons here Thursday.

He said when Badopadhyay was no longer with the Congress, he had no right to occupy the post as a legislator of that party.

“I want somebody else from the Congress to be given the opportunity to chair the standing committee,” Bhuniya added.

Sudip Bandopadhyay joined the Trinamool Congress after leaving the Congress recently.

Reacting to Bhuniya’s comment, Bandopadhyay said: “It’s the assembly speaker who decides who will be the chairperson of the committee. Now if he (the speaker) wants me to resign, I’ll do that.”

“But, Mr. Bhuniya has become a toy of the state’s Left Front government and he’s been driven by the whims of the communist leaders,” Bandopadhyay told IANS.

Another Congress heavy-weight legislator, Somen Mitra, had also left the party and floated his own political platform, Pragatishil Indira Congress (PIC), saying it was not possible to combat the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in the state by remaining in the Congress.