Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge will meet several functionaries from West Bengal in Delhi on Monday to deliberate on selecting the next state party president. The move is necessitated as the current West Bengal Congress chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's tenure has ended.
Besides Chowdhury, former state presidents Pradip Bhattacharya and Abdul Mannan, senior leaders Deepa Dasmunsi, Amitabha Chakraborty, Nepal Mahato, Manoj Chakraborty and Isha Khan Choudhury, the party’s sole Lok Sabha member from West Bengal who won the Malda South seat in the parliamentary elections have been summoned to Delhi for the meeting, reported Hindustan Times.
Manna will not attend the meeting because of illness and has communicated the same to the party.
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Five-time Member of Parliament from Murshidabad district’s Berhampore Lok Sabha seat since 1999, Chowdhury failed to maintain the streak during this year's Lok Sabha elections.
He was defeated by Indian cricketer and Trinamool Congress leader Yusuf Pathan in his electoral debut.
Congress general secretary KC Venugopal had earlier asked state leaders to convey their opinions on the leadership issues through e-mail or text messages.
Bhattacharya said that they had expressed their opinions. "I don’t know whether the top leaders want to meet us individually or collectively,” he added.
The Monday meeting comes at a time when the West Bengal unit of the Congress party is going through its worst phase since Independence. The party lacks representation in the legislative assembly and the organisational strength of the party in the districts and Kolkata has also reduced significantly.
“Reviving the party in Bengal is a herculean task right now,” Bhattacharya said, as per the HT report.