Guwahati, Aug 16: In a major setback to the Congress, its All India Mahila Congress president, Sushmita Dev had on last Sunday, 75th Independence Day tendered her resignation ending a three generation long relationship of her family with the party.
Sushmita’s grandfather, Satindra Mohan Dev, was a freedom fighter and told to be close with Jawaharlal Nehru and her father was a seven time Congress parliamentarian from Silchar who was an MP during Indira Gandhi’s term and Union Minister of state during Rajiv Gandhi’s term and then a union minister during Manmohan Singh’s term.
Sushmita, often considered the Congress’s face in Barak Valley, the three Bengali majority districts in southern Assam, however, didn’t give any reason for her resignation that she submitted to party president Sonia Gandhi.
After resignation, she had reportedly left the Congress’s WhatsApp group and changed her Twitter bio to “former” leader of Congress.
She, however, said she “cherished” her three decade long association with the grand old party and indicated about starting a “new chapter of public service”
All of 48-years-old, Sushmita began her political career young with the Congress as youth leader and climbed up fast beginning with being Chairperson of Silchar Municipal Corporation in 2009. She then contested the Assam Assembly elections in 2011 and held the office till 2014.
Despite the BJP blitzkrieg in 2014 that uprooted Congress from Centre, Dev managed to hold Silchar constituency that she later lost in 2019 general elections to BJP’s Rajdeep Roy.
The official TMC Twitter conformed, “We warmly welcome the former President of All India Mahila Congress @sushmitadevinc to our Trinamool family!
Inspired by MamataOfficial, she joins us today in the presence of our National General Secretary @abhishekaite & Parliamentary Party Leader, Rajya Sabha, @@derekobrienmp”.
We warmly welcome the former President of All India Mahila Congress @sushmitadevinc to our Trinamool family!
Inspired by @MamataOfficial, she joins us today in the presence of our National General Secretary @abhishekaitc & Parliamentary Party Leader, Rajya Sabha, @derekobrienmp. pic.twitter.com/JXyMJLIf52
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) August 16, 2021
Ahead of the Last Assam Assembly elections in March, Susmita had a spate of discontentment with the party’s high command over the distribution of party tickets as several Congress loyalists in the Barak Valley were miffed for not getting a chance to contest as the grand old party, that had formed a grand alliance, had to leave seats open for its allies too.
