Eighteen elected Trinamul members of Kharagpur municipality expressed no confidence in their chairperson for his “corrupt” and “authoritarian” ways.
Kharagpur municipality has 35 wards, with 25 Trinamul councillors. At least 18 have rebelled against Sarkar.
The dissenting councillors late last week wrote to the state and district leadership against chairperson Pradip Sarkar. Growing discontent among councillors forced Trinamul to seek Sarkar’s resignation on Monday.
“We informed the district and state leadership. It is an internal party matter and our leadership will take the final call,” said Taimur Ali Khan, municipality vice-chairperson, hours before Sarkar was asked to quit.
Ali Khan and 17 other councillors alleged Sarkar ran the municipality according to his whims and was financially corrupt.
At least 15 of the 18 dissenting councillors lodged a police complaint with Kharagpur Town police station on December 14, alleging Sarkar’s supporters threatened them. P. Prabhavati, the councillor of ward 20, said Sarkar’s followers laid siege to her residence for over two hours on December 14.
Dissenters said they would wait till Wednesday for Sarkar’s resignation.
Ajit Maity, district coordinator of Trinamul, said on Monday that Sarkar would resign by Tuesday.
Sarkar was elected as a councillor in 2015 and named the board chair. He continued in his role even after becoming an MLA from Kharagpur Town in the 2019 bypoll. In the 2021 Assembly polls, he lost to the BJP’s Hiran Chatterji.
After being elected councillor in 2022, the party named him the chairperson. But within nine months of his second term, most of his colleagues accused him of malpractice.
Maity at a news meet on Monday said the party would use Sarkar for political work under national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s orders. “That’s why we asked him to resign,” Maity said.
Sources said Trinamul believed if action was not taken on dissenters’ complaints, they could defect.
Sarkar refuted the charges against him. “Apart from running the municipality I had to fight Opposition parties. Mamata Banerjee gave me the responsibility. To bring a no-confidence against me will be insulting her,” he said.
