West Bengal: Pandaveswar MLA Jitendra Tiwari quits Trinamool Congress

Tiwari resigned soon after stepping down from the chairman's post of the board of directors of Asansol Municipal Corporation (AMC).

He was supposed to meet his party supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday.

"I had thought of meeting Mamata Banerjee tomorrow and seeking his direction. But the way my office has been attacked after resigning from the chairman's post, I have decided to step down from all posts of the party," Tiwari said.

Tiwari resigned days after he had accused the state government, run by his own party, of blocking central projects for political reasons.

Tiwari on Monday wrote a letter to West Bengal Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim saying, "Asansol was chosen under this project as a result of tremendous work effort of Councillors and entire team of AMC leading to being qualified as a city to be chosen under this but due to political reasons we were not allowed to get the benefits of this project by the State Government."

Tiwari further added in the letter that the state government had deprived Asansol from the Solid Waste Management Project of the central government, which is run by the Trinamool's adversary Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Tiwari accused the state government of not approving various project reports submitted by the AMC. 

The Trinamool is already disarrayed by its rebels just a few months ahead of the 2021 assembly elections.

Earlier in the day, former West Bengal Minister Suvendu Adhikari resigned from the primary membership of the Trinamool.