Amid internal rift, Mamata Banerjee to chair key TMC meeting today

Kolkata, Feb 18: West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee will hold a crucial meeting of newly formed national working committee on Friday to decide on the mayors of three municipal corporations it won this week.

Names for the new office bearers committee are also likely to be discussed during the meeting, according to a PTI report.

"The meeting will be held on Friday at 5 pm at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence. It will be a very crucial meeting. Names of the mayors of Chandernagore, Bidhannagar and Asansol municipal corporations are likely to be finalized," a senior TMC leader said.

TMC had won the three corporations and wrested power in Siliguri civic body from CPI(M)-led Left Front earlier this week.

Banerjee had announced that TMC leader Gautam Deb would be the next mayor of Siliguri and the names of the mayors of other three civic bodies will be decided later.

She had dissolved the party's national office bearers' committee, which included her nephew Abhishek Banerjee who was the TMC national general secretary on Saturday and formed a 20-member working committee amid a growing rift between the party old timers and Gen Next.

Asserting her firm control over the party, Banerjee packed the new working committee with party veterans but included Abhishek.

Among those who found place in the new TMC national working committee are Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Bakshi, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Anubrata Mondal, Aroop Biswas, Firhad Hakim and Yashwant Sinha, besides Abhishek Banerjee.

Amidst the rift in the party over the candidate list for the upcoming civic polls to 108 municipalities in the state, the TMC is mulling action against dissidents who have filed nominations as independents.

It reissued on Thursday its two-day ultimatum to the dissidents to withdraw their nomination or face action.