Mamata Banerjee on Saturday executed several changes in the Trinamul Congress by assigning new roles to some defeated candidates and apparently curtailing her nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s organisational responsibilities.
Referring to the 20 defeated Trinamul candidates, Mamata said most of them had fought well, and they lost in a highly-polarised contest.
Sources in Trinamul said the changes were brought about in a hurry without serious consideration and the rejig was meant to prevent the defeated candidates from feeling encouraged to jump ship.
“The overhaul was shabby. There are good reasons, other than polarisation and the BJP’s malpractices, behind the defeat of quite a few of them. By placing them in charge of the organisation at the same places where they lost, very little will be achieved,” said a Trinamul source.
For example, Birbaha Soren, who was defeated in Jhargram, was made the Jhargram district president of Trinamul. Mamata appointed Ratna De Nag, who lost the Hooghly Lok Sabah seat, the Hooghly district president of the party. Kanaia Lal Agarwal and Arpita Ghosh have been appointed as the district Trinamul chiefs of South and North Dinajpurs, respectively. Agarwal was defeated in Raiganj and Ghosh in Balurghat.
Abhishek, who was re-elected from Diamond Harbour, will no longer be the observer in Bankura and Purulia districts. The BJP won all three Lok Sabha seats in the two districts. “Abhishek will handle coordination with everyone. He will also oversee electoral roll revision,” said Mamata.
Mausam Noor who had lost Malda North is the new Malda district Trinamul chief. Bishnupur’s defeated candidate Shyamal Santra was placed in charge of the organisational district of Bishnupur.
Mamata placed Behrampore’s defeated candidate Apurba Sarkar as the chairman of the North Bengal State Transport Corporation, while Dinesh Trivedi was made the chairman of the Hooghly River Bridge Commissioners.
Trivedi had lost from Barrackpore.
Darjeeling’s defeated candidate Amar Singh Rai was made the chairman of the North Bengal Development Council.
On the other hand, Mamata gave Suvendu Adhikari the charge of the entire Jungle Mahal, Murshidabad, North and South Dinajpur districts and the party’s union of state government employees.
Trinamul lost six seats to the BJP in the Jungle Mahal.