Trinamool Congress’ Jitendra Tewari resigns from key post in Asansol board, to join BJP?

Jitendra Tewari, Trinamool Congress MLA from Asansol, on Thursday resigned as administrator of the Asansol Municipal Corporation. This has led to the belief of party insiders that Tewari is following the steps of Subhendu Adhikary, who is expected to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on December 19 at a public meeting in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

According to sources, Tewari has also expressed his wish to resign from the party. He however, has not gone public to state this. He has sent his letter of resignation to state municipal affairs and urban development minister Firhad Hakim.

Earlier this week, speculations were rife about his imminent exit from the party due to the fact that a letter Tewari wrote to Hakim got leaked out, and in this letter he had criticised Trinamool Congress government policy of returning Central funds instead of utilising it for the development of Asansol. Firhad Hakim and others in the Trinamool Congress were miffed that Tewari would choose to write such a letter instead of speaking about it to the party over phone or in meetings. While Tewari was supposed to attend a meeting in Kolkata to resolve matters with the party, he did not turn up, and instead there were talks that he was likely to meet the party chief Mamata Banerjee. However, apparently a telephonic conversation with Banerjee – who has been in north Bengal for the past few days – did not yield the desired result for the Trinamool Congress.

Tewari however, remains the Asansol MLA and a member of the Trinamool Congress.