TMC Assam chief resigns amid NCR row

In a major blow to Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, party's Assam chief Dwipen Pathak resigned from his post on Thursday.

Pathak, who represented Hajo constituency in Assam from 2011 to 2016, said that he resigned due to Mamata's stand over the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft.

"What Mamata Banerjee said about NRC draft, that it has been brought in Assam to drive out Bengalis, I do not agree with that. It might create disturbance here and the blame would be on me as a president. So I have resigned," he told ANI.

Banerjee has been consistently disapproving the latest NRC draft while accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of playing "vendetta politics" ahead of the 2019 general elections.

She had earlier said that there will be "civil war and bloodbath" if the issue of the Assam citizen's list is not solved. "Only to win polls people can't be victimised. Don't you think people whose name is not on the list will lose a part of their identity? Please understand India-Pakistan-Bangladesh were one before partition. Whoever came from Bangladesh to India till March 1971 is Indian citizen," she had said at a conference in Delhi.

The draft list, which was released on July 30, left out nearly 40 lakh people in Assam, incorporating names of 2.89 crore people out of 3.29 crore applicants.