Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the Trinamool Congress, announced the formation of a new 20-member national working committee on Saturday, disbanding the old one, which was founded in 2017 and included a few famous figures.
Banerjee was re-elected as the party’s chairman on February 2. She will be the lone office-bearer at the national level until the new office bearers of the national working committee are chosen.
“After being re-elected as the chairperson of the party, Banerjee had named six party leaders who were taking the decisions to run the party. On Saturday, Banerjee met the leaders and the new committee was formed. The office bearers will be named by Banerjee later,” said Partha Chatterjee, minister and the state secretary general of TMC.
TMC MPs Derek O Brien and Saugata Roy were among the prominent names on the previous list who were eliminated from the new list revealed on Saturday. Suvendu Adhikari was on the 2017 list. He joined the BJP in December 2020, just before the West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections in 2021.
The new national working committee includes Amit Mitra, Abhishek Banerjee, Anubrata Mondol, Arup Biswas, Asima Patra, Bulu Chik Baraik, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Subrata Bakshi, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Goutam Deb, Jyotipriyo Mullick, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Rajesh Tripathi.
The announcement was meant to address growing discontent led by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee to promote a ‘One Man, One Post’ policy in the party. The policy is resented by some of the party’s older guard, who hold multiple posts within the ruling establishment. Mr Banerjee is likely to continue as National General Secretary but an official announcement is awaited.
