Factionalism in Trinamool Congress comes to the fore

SURI ( WB): Factionalism in Trinamool Congress came to the fore today as demonstrations were held in the presence of its secretary general Partha Chatterjee following the killing of a popular party leader allegedly by supporters of another TMC leader.

Followers of Ashok Ghosh, who was killed near Bhimgarh railway station in West Bengal's Birbhum district yesterday, shouted slogans against TMC district committee president Anubrata Mondal and demanded CID investigations in to the death when Chatterjee visited the sadar hospital here, where the body was kept.

Ghosh, under whose leadership the party had won the recent panchayat polls in the area, had been rushed to the hospital after he was gunned down yesterday.

Mondal left the spot bowing to the demands and Chatterjee assured that those responsible for the killing would be punished.

The group, however, refused to be pacified and ransacked and set on fire a TMC office at Khairasole belonging to the group led by Ashok Mukherjee.

Later, when Chatterjee visited the party office of the group led by Ghosh in the same area he faced fresh demonstrations by TMC workers demanding steps against Mukherjee. Mondal, who had accompanied him, stayed away.

Assuring to look into their demands, Chatterjee told the party workers, "We will have to find out if there is any conflict. The chief minister is worried and therefore she sent me. I will give my report to her."

He later visited the Ghosh's village home at the neighbouring Kendragaria village.

Ghosh, a school non-teaching employee, was chased and gunned down by three motorcycle-borne gunmen when he was on way to the station to take a train to Sainthia yesterday.

Two of the three assailants were arrested last evening within hours of the murder itself from nearby Pandabeswar.