TMC MP accuses party leaders of extortion, ‘fixed commission’

Addressing a public meeting in Chandipur, Adhikary, a former Union minister in Manmohan Singh government, said everyone from panchayat leaders to the party MLAs and MPs were indulging in corruption. 

“There are leaders in the party who take fixed commission from contractors. They are drowned in corruption. The contractors often come to me and say ‘Dada, save us from the clutches of these people. They are demanding commission…sometimes it is 6 per cent, sometimes it is 10 per cent. We are doomed.’ The situation is horrible,” Adhikary said.

The MP, also the father of Tamluk MP Suvendu Adhikary and Kanthi Dakshin MLA Dibyendu Adhikary, did not take any names.

However, Ramnagar MLA Akhil Giri hit out at Adhikary and demanded his resignation both from the post of MP and party district president. “Sisir Adhikary should not have said this…he himself is out and out corrupt. He has tarnished the image of the party. The party rank and file are very unhappy over his remarks. We will tell Didi (TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee)…Sisir should have quit the post of the district president and should resign as MP,” Giri said talking to The Indian Express.

Reached for his reaction on Giri’s comments, Adhikary said, “Akhil is a small fry…a vermin. I don’t care about what he said. I have apprised (party secretary general ) Partha Chatterjee”.

Contacted, Chatterjee said he has told Adhikary not to air his grievances to the media. “I called him and told him about what the TV channels were showing. I also told him that if he had anything to say about somebody in the party, he should take it up with the party high command,” Chatterjee said at Nabanna, the state government secretariat.

Adhikary, considered to be the architect of Nandigram movement, and his son Suvendu, had been sidelined in the party in recent times. While senior Adhikary had to make way for Mukul Roy in the Manmohan cabinet, Suvendu was removed as president of Trinamool Youth Congress to project Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of Mamata.

3 days after Bhangar clash, TMC expels ex-MLA, aide

By: Express News Service

The Trinamool Congress Tuesday expelled for six years strongman and former MLA Arabul Islam who had often put the party in embarrassing situations, the latest being the October 25 intra-party clash at Bhangar in South 24-Parganas district which left two persons dead.

Besides Islam, his aide and Bhangar- I block president Jahangir Khan, whose name also featured in the Bhangar violence, was also expelled for similar period on charges of indiscipline and misconduct, TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said.

“The party’s disciplinary committee has decided to expel Arabul and Khan for six years. There is no place for indiscipline in the party,” Partha said, even as he trained guns at the opposition parties saying TMC was not like the “CPM which treats murderers as their assets” or like the BJP “where murder accused can become the party president”.

Chatterjee said this was not the first time that action had been taken against wayward leaders.

“The probe is not yet complete. If any new name crops up, then the person would also be punished,” Chatterjee added.