Countering the withdrawal of support to the UPA govt by the Trinamool Congress on Thursday, the Congress on Saturday followed the suit by pulling out its six ministers from the Mamata Banerjee ministry and also withdrawing support.
The ministers who submitted their resignation letters to the chief minister at the Writers’ Buildings were Manas Bhuinya (Irrigation, SMEs, Micro Industries, Textiles) and Abu Hena (Fisheries), both of them of cabinet rank.
Ministers of state Sunil Tirkey (Consumer affairs), Abu Naser Khan Chaudhury (Science and Technology and Parliamentary Affairs), Sabina Yasmin (Labour, ESI) and Pramathanath Roy (Planning and Development) were the others.
Bhuinya said that they submitted their resignation letters since the Trinamool Congress pulled out its six ministers from the UPA government and withdrew support.
“Our submission of resignation letters was a sequel to that and as per the decision of party high command and our state unit,” he said.
Finance minister Amit Mitra, besides Trinamool Congress leaders Saugata Roy, Sudip Bandopadhyay who resigned as union ministers of state along with four others on Thursday, were present when six Congress ministers put in their resignation papers before the chief minister.
Party leaders, including WBPCC chief Bhattacharya and CLP leader Md Sohrab, later met Governor M K Narayanan at Raj Bhavan and handed over Congress’ letter of withdrawal of support to the Trinamool Congress government.
To a question, WBPCC president Pradip Bhattacharya told reporters outside Raj Bhavan that the high command asked the party to discuss the issue of leader of opposition status for the CLP.
Six Ministers of Trinamool Congress submitted their resignations to President Pranab Mukherjee and the Prez accepted it.
The President Pranab Mukherjee also accepted the resignation of Roy and five other members of Trinamool Congress after the party, which has 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha, withdrew its support to the UPA government.
The others whose resignation was accepted by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister were Ministers of State Sudip Bandyopadhyay (Health and Family welfare), Saugata Roy (Urban Development), Choudhary Mohan Jatua (Information and Broadcasting), Sultan Ahmed (Tourism) and Sisir Adhikari(Rural Development).
Mukul Roy was among the six ministers from Ms Banerjee’s party who submitted their resignation letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last evening.
The Trinamool quit the UPA over the government’s decisions to increase diesel prices, cap the supply of subsidised cooking gas to households, and allow foreign mega-stores like Wal-Mart to arrive in India.
Meanwhile, a day after Mamata Banerjee and her party, the Trinamool Congress, formally pulled out of the UPA.