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| Mamata gets 'culture' shock |
| Rajat Roy / Kolkata Nov 17, 2009, 00:08 IST |
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Embarrassed by the surprised attack by her party MP Kabir Suman on the working culture of the TMC, Mamata Banerjee tried to diffuse the situation by giving him a ‘guest’ status in her party. “He is not a member of our party, he is a man from the cultural world. He is a honored guest of our party,” said Mamata.
Yesterday, Kabir Suman, the MP from Jadavpur constituency launched a vitriolic attack on his party saying that he felt ‘suffocated’ in the organisation.
His main grievance was that he became a slave of the party. "I cannot function independently as an MP and I have become a slave of the party. I feel suffocated,” Suman said on the sidelines of a programme to launch a magazine. The more serious charge he leveled against his party was about the way it was functioning in panchayat administration.
He said that the elected bodies in South 24 Parganas were not working for development under TMC. This is the charge commonly leveled against the CPI(M) for neglecting the pro-poor programmes in the rural area, for which it had faced serious erosion of support. In the last panchayat election CPI(M) lost both East Midnapur and South 24 Parganas to TMC. “The CPI(M) had control of the panchayats for so long. They did not do anything for the people. What about those who are in power now?" Suman asked. He alleged too much interference from his party in the normal functioning of the panchayat. Even he is not allowed to take decision about how to allocate funds from his MPLAD account.
For this, he blamed TMC leader Sovran Chatterjee. Disgusted with the functioning of the party, Suman is now ready to go alone. He had said that if he was not expelled from the TMC, he would request the Lok Sabha speaker to allot him a separate seat in the House.
Today, the core committee of the TMC, of which Suman is a member, met in the evening under the chairmanship of Mamata. But he did not attend it. Later, Mamata tried to explain this by saying, “In democracy, everybody is free to have his opinion.”
She hastened to add that there is always a scope for improvement in the working of the panchayat.
But Mamata was cautious and did not entertain further questions on the issue by saying that she won’t like to discuss internal party matters with the media.
Though Mamata has awarded Suman a ‘guest' status in the party, the MP had to put it on record in the Lok Sabha that he belonged to the TMC. The CPI(M) leaders are jubilant with the development in the TMC circle.
Shyamal Chakraborty and some other leaders have praised Suman for his “brave act and honesty”.
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