Rabindranath Ghosh, a senior Trinamool Congress leader and a former state minister from Cooch Behar, blamed two leaders of his party for the poor performance in the Assembly polls.
“If Udayan Guha and Abhijit De Bhowmik are not removed, Trinamool will not be able to recover in Cooch Behar. They should be expelled from the party,” said Ghosh on Tuesday.
Ghosh played a key role in building the party’s organisation in Cooch Behar. He was elected as an MLA in 2011 and re-elected in 2016. He served as a minister in the cabinet in 2016, handling the North Bengal development department.
“The current situation of the party is due to district president Abhijit De Bhowmik and Udayan Guha. They have mishandled the party. Senior workers have been ignored, weak candidates were given tickets and key leaders were implicated in false cases,” he added.
Udayan, a former Forward Bloc leader, was a late entrant to Trinamool and became a state minister. Abhijit is the district Trinamool president of Cooch Behar. They lost to BJP candidates in this election.
Ghosh was removed as the district president in 2019 and lost from the Natabari constituency in 2021.
He later won the civic polls and became the chairman of the Cooch Behar municipality. However, internal conflicts — particularly with Udayan Guha and Abhijit De Bhowmik — led to his removal from the post.
He criticised the party’s internal functioning, saying that the leadership structure had changed and the influence of “extortionists” had increased.
“Those who can collect more money are getting importance in the party. Genuine workers have no value anymore,” he remarked.
Papiya, his daughter and a former president of Trinamool’s Darjeeling (plains) district committee, echoed him.
Papiya, in whose tenure Trinamool won the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad for the first time in 2022, said the party had begun to function through hierarchies of “malik” (master) and “chakor” (servant).
“It is unfortunate, but we had been reduced to chakor and had to abide by the directions of the malik. We had no option but to reach out directly to the state leaders to share our suggestions and concerns. All we could do was to approach the employees of the agency deputed by the party,” she said.
