Ten Trinamool Congress councillors of the Gangarampur municipality in South Dinajpur resigned from their posts on Tuesday afternoon.
The sudden mass resignation has pushed the civic board to the brink of collapse.
Prashanta Mitra, the civic chairman and the brother of senior Trinamool leader and ex-minister Biplab Mitra, and Jayanta Das, the vice-chairman, have not resigned from their posts.
Trinamool had won all 18 seats of the civic body in 2022. One councillor died of illness sometime ago, leaving 17 others.
Among them, 10 tendered their resignations on Tuesday, and there are indications that two or three more councillors may quit in the coming days.
The resignations come just a day after Jayanta, the vice-chairman, faced protests while visiting a state government camp.
He was surrounded by people crying “chor” (thief) who allegedly threw mud at him.
“We have resigned due to personal issues, while some others have health problems which prevent them from regularly attending municipal duties. We decided on our own to ensure that the residents do not suffer from a lack of services,” said one of the councillors who submitted
his resignation.
The councillors had approached the SDO’s office to hand in their papers first.
However, they were informed that resignation letters had to be submitted directly to the municipality. They then submitted the letters to the executive officer of the
civic body.
Prashanta and Jayanta could not be contacted. Other Trinamool leaders declined to comment on the issue.
BJP leaders pointed out that after the recent public humiliation of the vice-chairman, the councillors may have felt insecure about their dignity and safety.
“Now that 11 councillors are not there in the civic body, we believe the civic board cannot function. We will approach the district administration and seek their intervention to ensure civic services are not disrupted across the town,” said Brindaban Ghosh, the BJP president of Gangarampur town committee.