Close on the heels of hosting senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan to a tea party in defiance of the party diktat, Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyay was today all set to be removed as the party’s chief whip in Lok Sabha.Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee said tonight that the Trinamool Parliamentary Party would meet here tomorrow to decide on a new chief whip in Lok Sabha to replace Sudip Bandopadhyay.Emerging from a meeting of Trinamool Legislature Party, Mamata said the post of party chief whip fell vacant. ‘‘It has to be filled up. We will discuss it at the Parliamentary Party meeting.’’Sudip Bandopadhyay, who fell out with Mamata for opposing the decision to distance the party from NDA on Eastern Railway bifurcation issue, earned the wrath of the party chief for inviting Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley to tea defying the party line.Bandopadhyay, meanwhile, said he had submitted his resignation from the post on April 13 and had requested the party to accept it. Mamata said as the leader of the Parliamentary Party she could have decided on a new chief whip. ‘‘But I want to discuss the issue with other party MPs’’.
