We have listened to public perception on Partha: TMC on Chatterjee’s ouster | India News

KOLKATA: Beleaguered Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee who was stripped of all his cabinet berths and party posts on Thursday, was also TMC secretary general, a member of the party’s national working committee, editor of the party mouthpiece “Jago Bangla”, the national senior vice-president and a member of the disciplinary committee.
Chatterjee’s nameplates outside his offices were removed by 5pm. “From today, for the next few days – until there is a cabinet reshuffle – I will hold charge of the industry and commerce department, along with all other departments that were with Partha Chatterjee,” CM Mamata Banerjee said.
The next cabinet meeting is scheduled for August 1. On Wednesday, facing a battery of reporters wanting to know if he would quit, Chatterjee had retorted: “What is the reason?”
Till a 15-minute cabinet meeting decided Chatterjee’s fate, TMC had maintained a measured response to ED arresting him and seizing Rs 21.9 crore and Rs 27.9 crore from two apartments belonging to his “close aide” Arpita Mukherjee. After the first raid, the party had said it would go by the “judicially accepted court evidence”. Mamata had said at least twice in the last couple of days that neither her government nor her party would show any leniency to anyone found guilty in a court of law as far as the irregularities in primary school recruitment were concerned.
The formal notification from the chief secretary about the cabinet decisions came less than an hour after the CM left Nabanna, the state secretariat. This meeting, the first since Chatterjee’s arrest, was attended by all ministers, including MoS (education) Paresh Adhikari, who is also facing allegations in the jobs-for-cash case.
While the CM chaired an industry meet, members of the Trinamool’s disciplinary committee, headed by national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, met at Trinamool Bhavan around 5pm. “The disciplinary committee has taken a unanimous decision to suspend Chatterjee from all existing party posts. Ours is a party for the people, by the people and of the people. Hence, when allegations have been raised against even a senior leader like Chatterjee, we have listened to the public perception and given the benefit of the doubt to people of Bengal and not him,” Abhishek said.
Since morning, party functionaries had publicly sought Chatterjee’s expulsion from the cabinet and the party. Spokesperson Kunal Ghosh tweeted at 9.52am that Chatterjee be “removed from ministry and all party posts immediately”.
Half an hour later, TMC’s youth wing general secretary and state spokesperson Debangshu Bhattacharya tweeted in Bengali: “My grandmother used to say, if pus gathers in an abscess, it should be ruptured… It’s pointless to torture the whole body for one abscess.”