Allow me to work as PAC chair: Bhunia

Amid repeated calls by his own party to quit the post, senior Congress leader Manas Bhunia on Thursday urged his party leadership to allow him function as the West Bengal assembly's Public Accounts Committee chairperson.

Ever since his appointment, the Congress which wanted the post to go to Communist Party of India-Marxist legislator Sujon Chakraborty has been urging Bhunia to quit the post contending it was a "trap" by the ruling Trinamool Congress to break their unity.

Bhunia, however has remained adamant and has been accusing party colleague and Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan and state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of "conspiring to humiliate him".

"Today I sent a text message to Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury asking him to cool down and let me function as the PAC chief for the next one year. I have requested him to go through the rule book of the assembly and decide what wrong I did by accepting the post," Bhunia told media persons.

He said that the post of PAC chairman goes to an member of the assembly's main opposition party which was the Congress and not the CPI-M.

Describing the controversy unwanted and embarrassing for the party, Bhunia said he was being "painted a villain" and called as "anti-party".

--IANS

and/vd