Kolkata, June 9 (IANS) Two rebel Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha members and one party legislator on Tuesday attended an administrative review meeting chaired by West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari at Kolaghat in East Midnapore district.

The meeting reviewed the administrative functioning of East Midnapore, West Midnapore and Jhargram districts.

The two Lok Sabha members who attended the meeting were actor-turned-politician and Trinamool Congress MP from Ghatal, Deepak Adhikari a.k.a. Dev, and actress-turned-politician and party MP from Medinipur, June Malia. Both Ghatal and Medinipur constituencies are in the West Midnapore district.

The Trinamool Congress legislator present was Siuli Saha, the current deputy leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and a prominent face in the rebel block of the Trinamool legislative party in the House led by expelled party legislator Ritabrata Banerjee.

Similarly, Dev and Malia are among the 20 Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha members led by senior MPs Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Satabdi Roy, who have declared rebellion and refused to accept Abhishek Banerjee’s leadership.

Since taking charge as the ninth Chief Minister of West Bengal, Adhikari has made it a practice to invite elected public representatives, including MPs and MLAs from opposition parties, to administrative review meetings. His reasoning is that smooth administrative functioning is not possible without coordination between district administration and elected representatives, irrespective of whether they belong to the ruling or opposition parties.

This practice of inviting opposition MPs and MLAs was followed during the 34-year Left Front regime from 1977 to 2011 by Chief Ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

However, the practice was stopped during the 15-year Trinamool Congress regime led by former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from 2011 to 2026. The system has now been resurrected by the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by CM Adhikari.

–IANS

src/dan