Krishna Chakraborty, a long-trusted aide of Mamata Banerjee, resigned on Thursday as mayor of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation after seven years in office, citing “personal reasons”.

Chakraborty, sworn in as the first woman mayor of any municipal corporation in Bengal in August 2019, said she would continue as a councillor.

She suggested it had become difficult for the Trinamool civic board to function since the BJP came to power in Bengal.

“A new government has taken over. They will surely do something good. The people have changed.… Councillors aren’t showing up. Officers are not coming,” she said.

“It was really getting difficult to provide services to the people. I have accountability (to the people). I apologise to the people that maybe I am no longer fit for the chair.”

She added: “I’ve been in this chair for a long time; let me do some other work. I’m no longer feeling comfortable here. I don’t think I would be able to work the way I have.”

Chakraborty has had a chequered tenure as a mayor. A township that once prided itself on being “different from Calcutta” became shabbier than the city on her watch. Broken roads, dysfunctional lights, and parks overgrown by shrubs — the township presents a picture of civic apathy.

An enormous pothole in Salt Lake’s FE Block mirrors the civic apathy on Krishna Chakraborty’s watch.  Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

While stepping out of Poura Bhavan in Salt Lake, a teary-eyed Chakraborty said she had been in politics since the age of 16 and that Mamata Banerjee “was like a mother” to her.

Chakraborty’s resignation comes a day after it became known that Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim wanted to put in his papers and had Mamata’s approval to do so. Hakim has yet to resign.

In her resignation letter to civic commissioner Ravi Agarwal, Chakraborty wrote: “I, Krishna Chakraborty, Mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, hereby tender my resignation from the post of Mayor due to personal reasons. I kindly request you to accept my resignation and take necessary steps in this regard.”

She tendered her resignation after meeting Agarwal in the afternoon and later sent a copy to Agnimitra Paul, the state’s new municipal affairs minister.

Chakraborty, whose husband Samir lost from the Pandua constituency in Hooghly on a Trinamool ticket this time, has been associated with Mamata since 1984, working alongside her during her early days in politics.

She later stepped into local governance, winning as a Trinamool candidate from Ward 3 in the 2010 civic elections, and later becoming chairperson of the erstwhile Bidhannagar Municipality before it was upgraded to a municipal corporation in 2015.

The corporation, which has 41 wards, covers Salt Lake, Rajarhat, Gopalpur and places like Baguiati, Kestopur, Kaikhali, Teghoria and Mahishbathan. It has close to 6.5 lakh residents spread over around 61sqkm.

In 2019, the Trinamool leadership chose Chakraborty for the mayor’s post after Sabyasachi Dutta, the first Bidhannagar mayor, resigned following an intra-party dispute.

Chakraborty continued as mayor following Trinamool’s sweeping victory in the February 2022 civic polls.

“I have worked for the people during my tenure as mayor. I want to give time to myself and will continue to work for the people as a councillor,” Chakraborty said.

Bidhannagar’s new MLA, Sharadwat Mukherjee of the BJP, said: “I will request the state government to engage an administrator for the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation in the absence of a mayor and start the process of holding civic elections afresh.”

He added: “She (Chakra-borty) was sitting on a money mountain…. She has now gone behind the curtain.”