Manas Bhunia. (File) Manas Bhunia. (File) Trinamool Congress leader Manas Bhunia, who had defected to the party from Congress in September last year, resigned from his Congress MLA post on Monday in a bid to contest the upcoming Rajya Sabha election as a TMC member. Despite leaving the party, Bhunia had not resigned as a Congress MLA until now, after TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee named him as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha election. He will file his nomination for the RS polls on Wednesday. On Monday afternoon, Bhunia submitted his resignation letter to Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee. A six-time MLA from Sabang, Bhunia was also the West Bengal Pradesh Congress President from 2010 to 2011. He had won from Sabang constituency after getting support from the Left Front and Congress, which had contested the polls after entering into an understanding. He had defected to TMC following his suspension from the party for his refusal to step down as the Chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC). “My long association with Congress has come to an end… Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has given me some responsibilities and duties, and I will try to fulfil them,” Bhunia said. Taking a dig at Bhunia, CPM MLA Sujan Chakraborty said Bhunia was forced to tender his resignation as a Congress MLA. “His nomination as TMC Rajya Sabha candidate would have got cancelled if he had not resigned as Congress MLA. He was forced to resign. The same rule is applicable for other MLAs who have also switched sides. They are yet to resign from their posts,” Chakraborty said. Meanwhile, CPM MLA and Siliguri Mayor Asok Bhattacharya wrote a letter to Mamata, urging her to resolve the unrest in the Darjeeling hills. In the letter, Bhattacharya asked the chief minister to create an atmosphere for holding a tripartite meeting to resolve the issue. “The state government is responsible for the present situation in the hills. Banerjee has violated the GTA agreement, and her government has also stopped the supply of goods and materials to hills. This has worsened the situation. We want the state government to convene a tripartite meeting to resolve the issue,” Bhattacharya said. For all the latest Cities News, download Indian Express App

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