The Municipal Affairs department has further trimmed the five-member Board of Administrators of the Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC) by scrapping three of its members.
On Saturday, the department had removed Amitabha Banerjee from his post as vice-chairman of the Board, appointing Dharmendra Yadav as his replacement. Yesterday, two more members — Rakhi Tewari and Dipankar Laha — along with Banerjee, were removed, sending shockwaves through the Trinamul Congress’s civic body wing.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier lashed out against the “unholy nexus” between land mafias, contractors, certain civic officials, bureaucrats and members of the Boards of Administrators during her meeting with the chiefs of Trinamul-run civic bodies. The meeting, aired live from the Nabanna conference hall on 25 June 2024, saw the chief minister declaring she would not tolerate inefficiency in the Boards, describing some members as “callous and useless.”
The municipal election of the DMC has remained pending since 2022 — a delay the Opposition has attributed to the state government’s apathy, negligence, and a “deliberate desire” to deny the people’s mandate. Since the dismantling of the elected Board in September 2022, the DMC had been run by a five-member Board of Administrators, which has now been reduced to just two members.
During his visit to the DMC on 21 August, state municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim had attempted to avoid questions about the pending election, remarking: “The Election Commission is supposed to fix the issue, not my department.”