In three letters to the district Magistrate, Dev resigned as ‘Vice-Chairman of Birsingha Development Authority’, ‘Chairman of Rogi Kalyan Samity – Ghatal SD Hospital’ and President of ‘Ghatal Rabindra Satabarshiki Maha Vidyalaya’. Dev however did assign any reason for his sudden resignation.
Birsingha Development Authority is a statutory body under urban development and municipal affairs department for the development of Ghatal municipal and Gram Panchayat areas. As an MP he also was the chairman of the Rogi Kalyan Samity which runs the hospital and chairman of the state run school.
Copies of his resignation are with The Express.
‘Subject: Resignation as the Vice-Chairman of Birsingha Development Authority Respected sir,1 Deepak Adhikari, would like submit my resignation as the Vice-Chairman of Birsingha Development Authority. Please do the needful. Thanking you, Yours sincerely, Deepak Adhikari (Dev) M.P. -Ghatal Constituency” the cryptic resignation letters read. All three resignation letters had the same format.
Dev could not be contacted by The Express.
According TMC insiders it may be that he is reluctant to contest for the third time.
“It is true that he was a reluctant politician and MP. He is a busy man but took time out for his constituency. He won twice from this seat. He will be able to tell what he has in his mind,” said a senior Trinamool Congress leader.
Sources also stated that the MP has long term problems with local party leaders and was unhappy over it.
BJP MLA from Ghatal , Sital Kapat said that the reason may be that he could not perform his duty properly holding so many posts, others in Trinamool stated that maybe he wants to concentrate on Lok Sabha polls.
“He was holding so many posts. Maybe he was unsuccessful in the posts. Maybe that before Lok Sabha people will question him for his failures. Maybe he could not carry the burden of so many posts,” said Kapat speaking with media persons.
Born in Mahisda, a village in Keshpur in Paschim Medinipur district, Dipak Adhikari went on to become Bengali sine star. He is a popular actor with a number of commercial films under his belt. In 2014 he contested in Ghatal Lok Sabha seat after request from chief minister Mamata Banerjee and won. In 2019 Dev once again contested on a Trinamool Congress ticket and won from the seat.
In 2022, Dev and superstar turned BJP leader Mithun Chakraborty starred in a film “Projapati”. The film courted controversy after it failed to find a slot in Nandan creating controversy. BJP has alleged that the film has intentionally not been released in Nandan since it features Mithun Chakraborty.
The film was a joint production of Dev Entertainment Ventures and Bengal Talkies. Following the controversy Dev told the media that the movie has been. Released on several singles and multiplexes across Bengal and he has already started getting good response for the same.
” It would have been great if we could have got the slot in Nandan. But nevertheless, hopefully my next project will get a berth at Nandan,” Dev had said then.