“The Congress is still paying the price for the expulsion of Mamata Banerjee (in 1997). I had tried to prevent it but (the then state Congress chit) Somen Mitra was forced to take the decision under the pressure of the party leadership,” Bhattacharya said on Saturday while unveiling a bust of Somen Mitra, who died in 2020.

Former MP Bhattacharya said Mitra had expelled Mamata Banerjee in 1997 following instructions from the then party chief Sitaram Kesri due to her comments against the party line.

“The day Mamata Banerjee was expelled, I was returning from Srirampur. I was on the road when I got a call from Somen Mitra. He told me, Sitaram Kesri said you have to expel her… That day I told Somen not to do it. I told him don’t do anything. But such was the pressure on him that he had to. And for that, the Congress party is still suffering even today. I do not know how the party will fill the gap or recover from it,” the senior Congress leader said.

After her expulsion, Mamata Banerjee formed the Trinamool Congress and went on to become the chief minister of West Bengal after ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front. Meanwhile, Bhattacharya’s comments triggered a political row, with senior party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury questioning the timing of the comments.

Hinting at the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in the state, Chowdhury, a former state unit president and critic of Mamata, said: “One may regret it today because the Rajya Sabha polls are ahead… He (Bhattacharya) is a veteran leader. He can say as it was in their time the expulsion happened.”

Reacting to Bhattacharya’s remarks, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said, “He is correct. The Congress in the state was aligned with the Left Front, which contributed to its decline.”

— with PTI