Thaindian News

Kolkata/New Delhi, March 17 (IANS) In a hardening of stands, the Trinamool Congress Saturday asked its nominee and Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi to resign from the post, but the latter sought written instructions from party chief Mamata Banerjee.

Banerjee put the ball in the central government’s court on the issue of replacing Trivedi with another party leader Mukul Roy and said she had already conveyed whatever was needed. “Now the (United Progressive Alliance) government has to decide.”

“We have renominated Mukul Roy as our Rajya Sabha candidate. He is our general secretary and future railway minister,” she said.

Trinamool Congress parliamentary party chief whip Kalyan Banerjee telephoned Trivedi, who has fallen out with the party leadership after raising passenger tariff in the railway budget, and asked him to make an honourable exit before he was dismissed.

“Don’t ask me anything. Talk to Kalyan (Banerjee). He is the chief whip of the parliamentary party,” Mamata Banerjee, who is also West Bengal chief minister, told reporters.

Trivedi confirmed having received a call from the chief whip.

“Kalyan Banerjee had called me in the morning. But earlier Sudip Bandopadhyay (Trinamool parliamentary party leader) said on the Lok Sabha floor that ‘we have not told him (Trivedi) to resign’. And the prime minister (Manmohan Singh) has also not told me to resign,” he said.

“On the floor of parliament it is being said no resignation has been demanded. And after that now I am being asked over phone to quit. So I should know the truth,” Trivedi told reporters in Delhi.

Earlier, Trivedi said he was ready to resign provided his party conveyed it to him properly.

“I will abide by the party’s decision. If I wanted to stay in my chair, I could have. I don’t want to be humiliated like this. I have done my bit. Let them convey it to me properly. I will resign in a day or two,” Trivedi told CNN-IBN news channel.

Kalyan Banerjee said he had called Trivedi as a colleague. “As chief whip I told him when the party does not want you to continue as minister, why are you not gracefully coming out? He said unless the party chairperson gives him in writing he won’t.”

“I told him when you became a union minister, our chairperson did not give you anything in writing. Our leader has already sent a communication seeking his replacement. He will be dismissed. For him, it would have been better to give his resignation than get sacked,” Kalyan Banerjee said.

“Whatever is to happen will happen. If he wants so, then let him come out with the stigma of dismissal,” he said angrily.

To a query whether the party would give him a written communication on its stand, Kalyan Banerjee replied that first let him hand over to us anything that he has in writing from Mamata Banerjee that prompted him to take oath as a minister.

“It was only a party decision that he should become minister. Similarly the party has been clear in its stand that he should quit,” he said.

Trivedi’s maiden rail budget Wednesday proposed an all-round fare hike after 10 years.

Angry with the hike, his party chief urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday night to replace Trivedi with Mukul Roy.