6 Cong ministers in West Bengal submit their resignations to Mamata

Kolkata: Six Congress ministers in West Bengal submitted their resignations to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday evening. The MLAs met Mamata at the Writers' Building.

The ministers - Manas Bhuinya, Abu Hena, Sunil Tirkey, Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury, Sabina Yasmeen and Pramathanath Roy quit after the Trinamool Congress pullout from the Centre on Friday.

The West Bengal Congress will now meet on October 12 and decide on its next course of action.

The West Bengal Congress will now meet on October 12 and decide on its next course of action.

"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 MK 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.

"We will call a CLP meeting and take a decision before moving the Assembly speaker," he added.

The party emerged as the single second largest party in the Assembly. The status of leader of opposition is now held by the CPI(M)-led Left Front.

Congress has a strength of 42 in the 294-member House, while CPI(M) has 38 and the combined strength of CPI(M)-led Left Front is 60.

Trinamool Congress alone has 185 members. To a question, Bhattacharya said that the WBPCC had called a meeting on October 12 to discuss its strategy.

With Additional Inputs from PTI

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