Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has resigned as the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. The move follows after a Pradesh Congress Committee meeting was called on Tuesday, according to sources, to introspect on its poor performance in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. Though Ms. Chowdhury confirmed the resignation, there has been no official word from the Congress leadership on whether the resignation has been accepted, leading to intense speculation over his successor.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chowdhury referred to the vacancy existing for a full-time state president since the elevation of Mallikarjun Kharge to the national presidency of the Congress. Barring any indication that a new full-time president will be appointed shortly, this will make the situation clear.
Ironically, Mr. Chowdhury's announcement came on a day when Congress's Rajya Sabha member and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram visited the state secretariat Nabanna and met Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Adhir Chowdhury is a five-term Lok Sabha MP from Baharampur in Murshidabad who lost in the hands of Trinamool Congress's celebrity candidate Yusuf Pathan in the recent elections.
There have been reports about Mr. Chowdhury's dissensions with the central leadership of the party over the party's relationship with the Trinamool Congress. Basically, what has been niggling is his insistence on having electoral ties with the CPI(M)-led Left Front, and those differences had galloped during the Lok Sabha polls with Mallikarjun Kharge.
Insiders within the Bengal Congress branded Isha Khan Chowdhury, the sitting party Lok Sabha member from Maldaha-Dakshin and the lone Congress MP from Bengal, as one of the frontrunners to succeed Mr. Chowdhury in the state unit leadership.
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