Will not seek re-election in 2021 Bengal polls: Trinamool MLA

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA from Barrackpore, Silbhadra Dutta, on Sunday said he will not be seeking re-election in the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls, but asserted that he did not have any plans to leave the party now.

Dutta told reporters at his office in Barrackpore that he has not taken a decision to join any other political party and may continue as an ordinary worker of the TMC, which is in power in West Bengal.

Asked if his decision was prompted by the decision of the TMC top brass to rope in poll strategist Prashant Kishor and his organisation I-PAC for strategising election campaigns for the party, Dutta said, "I won't speak on this issue."

However, he said, "The agency you have talked about has been instrumental in the win of some parties in a couple of states, but again couldn't prevent the electoral reverses of their recruiting parties in some other states."

"As far as my understanding goes, the digital process (as resorted by Kishor's organisation) may not work out in Bengal. Here the ground situation is different. But there are top leaders in our party to take a call on this issue. I am nobody," he said.

Dutta, who was elected MLA in the 2011 polls, was known to be close to BJP leader Mukul Roy when Roy was in the TMC.