Jitendra Tiwari, Trinamul Congress MLA from Pandaveswar and chairman of the board of administrators at the Asansol Municipal Corporation, skipped the meeting with urban development minister Firhad Hakim on Tuesday in Calcutta amid murmurs that he was distancing himself from the party.

The meeting was urgently called by Hakim and Trinamul’s poll strategist Prashant Kishor was scheduled to be present. Tiwari, who is also Trinamul’s West Burdwan district president, shot off a letter to Hakim, saying the city (Asansol) had lost out on central funds because of the state government’s refusal to be part of the Smart City Mission for “political reasons”.

Sources close to Tiwari said he wanted to discuss the issues only with chief minister Mamata Banerjee once she returned to Calcutta after her visit to north Bengal.

Both Tiwari and Firhad got involved in a war of words over the letter.

Sources said Tiwari and Bengal housing minister Aroop Biswas had a brief telephonic conversation on Monday after the letter triggered a controversy.

“Aroop Biswas called up Tiwari on Monday evening and asked him to say whatever he wanted to Mamata Banerjee. He also assured him of arranging a five-minute meeting with the chief minister to discuss the matter,” said Trinamul leader in Asansol who is close to Tiwari.

Sources said Tiwari had been asked to be in Calcutta on December 18 to meet the CM.

Tiwari was on Tuesday seen busy in attending several programmes of the AMC where he repeatedly said he was ready to quit his chair to fight for the development of Asansol, his home town.

“I am not hankering for chair or power. All that I want is to develop Asansol as it is my city and for the purpose, I need funds. I am ready to quit the chair if I am asked to,” he said.

However, sudden development in the ruling party politics surprised everyone in Asansol.

Sources said the relation between Firhad and Tiwari turned bitter since the minister raised allegations against Durgapur mayor Dilip Agasty during an administrative review meeting of the chief minister last month. At the meeting, Firhad accused Agasty, who is close to Tiwari, of not working properly. Later, Mamata ordered to remove Agasty from the meeting after describing him as “good for nothing”.

However, Agasty remained in his chair and recently held a meeting with the chief minister during her visit here last week.