Sovan Chatterjee, who stepped down as mayor of Calcutta on Thursday, offered to also resign as councillor of Ward 131 and said he was ready to even quit as a Trinamul MLA, if asked to do so.
“I am still the councillor of Ward 131 of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation since I have not yet resigned (from that position)…. I am ready to do so if the nominated mayor wants to be elected from there. This is my proposal, although I don’t know whether my party will accept it,” Chatterjee said at a news conference on the lawn of his apartment block in Golpark.
He was referring to the new amendment to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980, that allows an outsider to become mayor, provided he or she gets elected to the civic body within the next six months.
Before the amendment on Thursday, only a councillor could occupy the mayor’s chair.
Chatterjee said he had obeyed every instruction given by chief minister Mamata Banerjee during his 40-year political journey with her. “I will also resign as the MLA of Behala (East), if I am asked to. I will accept all the decisions that my party takes,” he said.
Chatterjee described his resignation from the government as a painful moment. “I wouldn’t want anybody, not even my greatest enemy, to go through this,” he said.
Sources said Chatterjee had had a “small argument” with the chief minister in the Assembly that day, after which he resigned. Unlike on four previous occasions when he had put in his papers, Mamata accepted the resignation.
Asked whether this was the first occasion that he had had a difference of opinion with the chief minister, the former mayor evaded the question. He contested the allegation that he had not been concentrating on his work because of personal problems.
“I worked hard during my tenure as mayor. I changed Calcutta’s look.... There is not a single file in my (old) office at the CMC that is pending clearance,” he said.
