No-trust dare to Trinamul

Siliguri, May 17: The Congress today challenged Trinamul to move a no-trust motion against Siliguri municipal corporation mayor Gangotri Datta if it was not satisfied with her work rather than preventing her from discharging her duties. The immediate provocation for the Congress to attack Trinamul was an eight-hour demonstration by its Trinamul councillors yesterday at the SMC office to protest the suspension of 12 contractual employees. The Trinamul councillors also pasted posters on the door of the mayor’s chamber and covered her nameplate with newspapers demanding her resignation. “Trinamul councillors are targeting the mayor frequently and creating hindrances in her official functions under the instructions of north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb. We condemn such acts and want to clarify that if civic service is affected, it would be solely because of Trinamul,” said Darjeeling district Congress president Shankar Malakar. “If Trinamul wants Gangotri Datta to be removed, it should table a no-confidence motion against her, instead of launching an agitation. The mayor’s post is an elected one and she can be removed only through a no-confidence motion. The Congress would then prove its majority on the floor,” he said. “If Trinamul continues to resort to such acts that are detrimental to the normal functioning of the SMC and keeps targeting the mayor, we (Congress) would not sit idle. We will take to the street and politically counter Trinamul,” Malakar added. The Congress leader alleged that Trinamul had been “conspiring for several months” to create troubles at the civic body. “From the illegal election of the SMC chairman and the opposition to passing of the annual budget to the harassment of the mayor, Trinamul has been trying to create problems at the SMC. We have been patient so far but would not tolerate them any more. The mayor and the members mayor-in-council are functioning in an appropriate manner. Their official work is getting affected only by Trinamul’s attempt to control the civic body,” said Malakar, who is the Matigara-Naxalbari MLA. Told about Malakar’s challenge to move the no-trust motion against Datta, Trinamul said the Congress shouldn’t forget the fact that it was even boycotting the monthly meeting of the civic board. “Congress leaders seem to have forgotten that the mayor and councillors of their party are not even attending the monthly board meetings. Their absence, we feel, is because of the Congress’s realisation that the mayor can’t get a single decision passed at the board for lack of majority. Let the mayor and other Congress councillors attend a board meeting, then we will prove that she lacks majority at the SMC,” said Krishna Pal, a Trinamul councillor and the secretary general of the Darjeeling district committee of the party.