Abhishek Banerjee was appointed Trinamool Congress national general secretary a working committee meeting on Kolkata on Friday. Party supremo Mamata Banerjee, chairing the first working committee meeting since all posts were dissolved on February 12, retained nephew Abhishek in a post he held earlier.
Emerging out of the meeting, senior party leader Partha Chatterjee said, “Yashwant Sinha, Subrata Bakshi and Chandrima Bhattacharya will be the party national vice-presidents; Sukhendu Sekhar Ray will be the national spokesperson.”
The rift inside the party came to the fore on several occasions, the latest being the tweets of Abhishek loyalists on one-man-one-post which the party at present is not supporting. The earlier instance was when two lists of candidates for the civic polls in the state surfaced, one signed by the party functionaries and the other unsigned.
The reshuffle will paper over the rift as both the senior and the junior camps of the party as attempts have been made to mollify both the factions — with Abhishek remaining the second in command in the party and with old-timers getting several plum posts in the organisation.
Election strategist Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC was dragged into the Mamata versus Abhishek conflict after minister Chandrima Bhattacharya claimed I-PAC posted in favour of one-man-one-post from her social media account without taking her permission, which I-PAC denied.
