Kolkata:

West Bengal Congress President and five-time Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said on Saturday that his continued opposition to the ruling Trinamool Congress is for the sake of keeping the Congress relevant in the state.

“My fight is to keep Congress relevant in West Bengal. I cannot move away from it since I am a dedicated soldier of the party,” Mr Chowdhury said while speaking to mediapersons in his home constituency Baharampur.

Mr Chowdhury has been criticising Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee – who has committed her support to the INDIA bloc – and raised doubts that the West Bengal chief minister could back the BJP in the times to come.

On Saturday, while addressing a press meet in Mumbai, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said that Mr Chowdhury was no one to decide the measures to be adopted for government formation after the polls.

“Mamata Banerjee has said that she will support the INDIA bloc from outside. As far as Adhir Ranjan’s remark is concerned, he is no one to decide anything. The top leaders and the party high command will decide that and those who won’t follow the same will be out of the party,” said Mr Kharge.

Hours later, Mr Chowdhury clarified that he does not hold any personal grudge and that his opposition to Trinamool is for the sake of Congress in the state.

He also said that being a member of the Congress Working Committee, he is part of the party high command.

Targeting Mamata Banerjee, he alleged that the leader took the help of Maoists in the tribal-dominated pockets of West Bengal to come to power.

“When the fight was on with the Left Front, she took the help of Maoists. She can do anything to guard her political interests and compromise with her political ideology. But I cannot do that,” said Mr Chowdhury.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:
Former bureaucrat Sukhbir Singh Sandhu was on Thursday appointed as one of the new Election Commissioners, with the other being Gyanesh Kumar, by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Here are 5 facts about Sukhbir Singh Sandhu: