Actor and Trinamul MP Dev, resigns from three crucial government-nominated positions
Telegraph | 5 February 2024
Actor and Trinamul Congress MP from Ghatal, Dev (Dipak Adhikari), resigned from three crucial government-nominated positions on Saturday, the move coming at a time when there are talks within Bengal's ruling party that chief minister Mamata Banerjee is keen to renominate him from his parliamentary constituency.
Dev won the Lok Sabha elections from Ghatal in both 2014 and 2019.
The two-time Trinamul MP resigned as the chairman of the Ghatal Hospital's Patient Welfare Committee, president of the managing committee of Ghatal Rabindra Centenary Mahavidyalaya, and vice-chairman of Birshingh Unnayan Parishad.
"As he quit the positions, which are all nonprofit offices, shortly after Mamata expressed her willingness to renominate him in the Lok Sabha polls from Ghatal, several Trinamul insiders in Calcutta and the district (West Midnapore) are wary whether he is having second thoughts on contesting the polls," said a Trinamul veteran in West Midnapore.
Although the actor-MP could not be contacted, several Trinamul leaders in the district leadership said that Dev had become disillusioned with the actions of a few in the party.
"His disillusionment with a few district leaders perhaps prompted him to resign," the veteran source said.
“Dev had a long dispute with a former MLA of Ghatal Sankar Dalui but in the district review meeting that Didi held recently, she had made it very clear that the party wanted Dev to be the candidate and had asked everyone to cooperate with him. Since then there had been no problem but the resignations have come as a surprise,” an MLA present at the review meeting said.
Contacted, Dalui downplayed the differences and said they "shared a good relationship". "I am also surprised to hear about the resignations," he said.