Kolkata: Amid politics heating up in West Bengal, a leader recently suspended by the Trinamool Congress has claimed that 50 party MLAs are united, met at a hotel recently, and form two-thirds majority.
Remarks made by suspended TMC leader Riju Dutta on Tuesday added fresh suspense to the future of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and her party in Bengal, weeks after suffering a big defeat at the hands of the BJP.
Giving details about the ongoing ‘Signgate’ that has triggered a CID investigation, Dutta spoke about two expelled Trinamool MLAs, Ritabrata Bandopadhyay and Sandipan Saha, who claimed their signatures were forged in documents submitted to the West Bengal Assembly.
He also said that some party leaders would approach the Speaker of the Assembly this afternoon to raise their issues.
Riju Dutta said that a “Maharashtra model” was in place in Bengal as he claimed that about 50 MLAs are united to form a two-thirds majority. “We are a two-thirds majority. Around 50 MLAs are with us.
Since we are the real Trinamool Congress, the Leader of the Opposition will be Ritabrata Bandopadhyay, and not Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay,” Dutta said, adding that since the majority is formed by the said legislators, they should also be allowed to retain the party symbol.
He went on to say that the “Shiv Sena Maharashtra model” was currently in place in Bengal. Dutta may have been referencing the 2022 split of Shiv Sena into two factions, after which the then Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government was ousted from power in Maharashtra.
A fight for the party name and symbol had erupted back then as well, which eventually went into the Eknath Shinde-led faction’s favour, given its legislators’ majority in the state Assembly.
