The Trinamool Congress continues to crumble with exodus as on Tuesday State Sports Minister and former India player Laxmi Ratan Shukla quit the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet in order to, what he said, concentrate more on his game — cricket.
The 39-year-old Shukla, former Bengal captain, found an instant supporter in fellow MLA Baishali Dalmiya, the daughter of late BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya who said the former all-rounder had quit because he was not given to work the way he wanted.
“He was in chains. He was not allowed to work by vested interests …clearly he was prey of interest group politics. This is unfortunate,” Dalmiya said.
Shukla also resigned as the president of North Howrah district unit of the party.
Sources said he however would not quit as an MLA because “I was elected by the people and I cannot betray them … so I will continue to work for them till my entire term.”
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who immediately accepted Shukla’s resignation ruled out any “misunderstanding,” in the party saying “he quit because he wants to work for sports particularly his cricket …
There is nothing wrong in it if he wants to do so. We wish him success.”
His resignation comes within a fortnight of his senior colleague Suvendu Adhikary quitting the Ministry and party to join the saffron outfit. While Suvendu’s father Sisir Adhikary a veteran MP and former Union Minister and second brother Dibyendu also an MP were still in the TMC, his youngest brother Soumendu a municipal chairman joined the BJP.
Shukla’s resignation came on a day when another senior Minister Rajiv Banerjee skipped the Cabinet meeting for the second consecutive time on Tuesday.
Banerjee who has openly spoken against nepotism in the party where “undeserving people even of questionable conduct get priced positions just because they excel in the art of sycophancy,” did not attend Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting despite being asked to do so by senior leaders like Sougato Roy.
The triumvirate of Banerjee, Shukla and Dalmiya come from the same Howrah district though inside sources in the party said they were not acting in mutual connivance.
Welcoming Shukla’s resignation State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said, “Shukla is a good human being and also a known cricket personality. We will welcome him if he wants to join the BJP. But for that he will have to adopt our ideology and shun the ideological fallacy that the TMC represents.”
Congress Lok Sabha leader and PCC president Adhir Chowdhury said “no self-dignified person can live in the Trinamool Congress for long … it is not a party. It is a company belonging to one person who treats others as her employees.
“The TMC is now facing existential crisis with people leaving it every day. Gradually the party will be left with no one save a few persons. At this juncture I must welcome those good persons in the Trinamool who do not want to stay in that party and who cannot go to the BJP for ideological reasons … The Congress’ gates are always open for such good persons. They may join us in our fight.”
CPI(M) Legislature Party leader Sujan Chakrabarty said that though his party never held the brief of turncoats “the mass quitting of the party that Mamata Banerjee is seeing now is her own creation. She should remember how she used money and muscle power to break other parties like the Congress and the Left to make their workers join the TMC. Now she has to bear all this because the BJP is turning out to be a bigger purchaser than her.”
