Mamata Banerjee to meet party MLAs today to outline Oppn strategy
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo and former West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has on Tuesday convened a meeting with the 80 elected party legislators in the recently concluded Assembly polls to discuss and adopt a strategy as the principal opposition party in the state now.
Trinamool Congress general secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member, Abhishek Banerjee, is also supposed to be present at the meeting in the afternoon.
A party member in the current Assembly, on strict condition of anonymity, said one of the major issues on the agenda is how to tackle the situation when the political administration of the different civic bodies in the state, which are still Trinamool Congress-controlled, are facing bureaucratic insubordination in the changed political situation.
The meeting has been convened amid the development with Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) authorities, which still has the current and four-time Trinamool Congress and former member in the previous Mamata Banerjee-led cabinet, Firhad Hakim, as its Mayor, issuing notices under Section 400(1) of the KMC Act 1980, which allows owners of allegedly illegal constructions an opportunity to appear before civic authorities and present their case.
Notices have been served to 17 properties owned by Abhishek Banerjee in areas within the KMC jurisdiction, and copies have been pasted on the walls of these properties.
Incidentally, the KMC authorities served these notices a couple of days after the current Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, while addressing a gathering at Falat in South 24 Parganas district last week, hinted at enquiries about such properties linked to one corporate entity reportedly owned by Abhishek Banerjee.
However, while hinting at this, the Chief Minister felt short of directly naming Banerjee and instead addressed him as “Mr Nephew”.
In the meeting, Adhikari also said that he had brought a list of 24 properties owned by a company of “Mr Nephew” from the KMC.
Even on Monday, the Chief Minister reminded that the new cabinet led by him is determined to take strong legal action against every person who was involved in corruption and looting public money during the previous Trinamool Congress regime.
Incidentally, on Monday, the Chief Minister announced the formation of two separate probe commissions, both headed by retired judges of the Calcutta High Court, to investigate cases of “institutional corruption” and “crime against women”.
“Both the probe commissions will start functioning from June. Justice Biswajit Basu (retired) of the Calcutta High Court will head the committee probing cases of ‘institutional corruption’. On the other hand, the committee probing cases of ‘crime against women’ will be headed by Justice Samapti Chattopadhyay,” the Chief Minister told media persons on Monday afternoon.
