Panihati Municipality board of councillors accept civic chairperson's resignation
Telegraph | 18 March 2025
The board of councillors of Panihati Municipality accepted the resignation of its chairperson on Monday.
Malay Roy was asked to step down on March 11 by the state urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim.
There are 35 councillors in Panihati, 33 of them voted. One councillor from the Left Front and one from Trinamul were absent during Monday’s voting.
Roy had told Metro earlier that minister Hakim informed him that chief minister Mamata Banerjee wanted him to quit.
He had sent his resignation letter to the sub-divisional officer, Barrackpore, last week.
On Monday, the board of councillors met and recommended that Roy’s resignation be accepted.
A state government official said the sub-divisional officer will now accept the resignation and ask the board to convene a meeting to elect a new chairperson.
“Thirty-three of the 35 councillors are from the Trinamool Congress and one each are from Congress and the Left. The councillor elected on a Left Front ticket and one councillor from Trinamool were absent at the voting. The councillor elected on a Congress ticket voted in favour of the resignation,” said Subhas Chakraborty, the vice-chairperson of Panihati Municipality.
Roy said: “I have already submitted my resignation as directed by my party. But I have not done anything wrong.”
Roy’s resignation was ordered by his party leaders after allegations of a plan to set up a real estate project on a popular playground in Panihati came to the fore a few days ago.
Earlier this year, a society that owns the 27-acre Amarabati Ground wrote to the municipality expressing its wish to undertake real estate projects at the site.
The ground at the Amarabati crossing in Panihati is where the Panihati Utsab is held. It has been used as a playground by residents for years, but portions of it were also encroached upon and cars and buses use the ground as their garage.
State government officials told the society that it was allowed to hold on to such a large tract of land for charitable purposes.
The expression of its desire for real estate projects on the land violated the conditions for which it was allowed to own such a large tract of land, said an official.
The Urban Land Ceiling Act does not allow any organisation or individual to hold land over 500sqm or 0.123 acres in urban areas.
“Roy is not corrupt but has lost grip on local party leaders that’s why he was removed,” said a senior Trinamool leader from the area.
The vice-chairperson of Panihati Municipality said the board of councillors will meet on March 21 to select a new chairperson.