Jawhar Sircar is free to leave the party: TMC MP Sougata Roy

Senior TMC leader Sougata Roy on Tuesday said Jawhar Sircar,  who has criticised the corruption within the party, is free to leave as it does not need "selfish people at the time of crisis".

Sircar, he said, should stop "attaching too much importance to his views" and Trinamool Congress should immediately initiate disciplinary action against him for violating party discipline. 

"If he (Sircar) is so embarrassed by the developments, then why is he still holding on to his post? He should immediately resign from his post of (Rajya Sabha) MP. He is free to leave the party, it won't have any impact. People like Jawhar Sircar had no role in TMC's struggle or in its fight in the last Bengal Assembly polls," Roy said.

Sircar had said on Monday that a section of TMC is "completely rotten" and that BJP cannot be fought in the 2024 general election with such elements.

The former bureaucrat, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha a year ago on a TMC ticket, had recently said his friends and family had asked him to quit politics after the party's leaders Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal were arrested by central investigating agencies in connection with the alleged teacher recruitment and cattle smuggling scandals respectively.

"The party does not need selfish and opportunist people. Jawhar Sircar should immediately resign as MP. He is behaving as if he is the only one to have public stature and we don't have any. I will request the party leadership to take disciplinary action against him immediately," he said.

Another TMC leader, who did not wish to be named, said Sircar's leaving the party won't have any impact.

"People like Jawhar Sircar join politics after retirement from the IAS to enjoy the fruits of being an MP. Now when there is crisis in the party, they try to run away. He says he wants to fight against Narendra Modi, but he is nothing without the tag of a TMC MP," the TMC leader said.

Sircar had joined TMC last year after party supremo Mamata Banerjee named him as the party's candidate for Rajya Sabha by-poll when a seat fell vacant after the resignation of Dinesh Trivedi, who had switched over to BJP ahead of the Bengal Assembly polls.

Repeated calls to Sircar for his reactions went unanswered.