A day after arrested TMC leader Anubrata Mondal was taken to Delhi by the ED in connection with its probe into a cattle smuggling case, party MLA Madan Mitra on Wednesday said he was ready to fill in Mondal's shoes and win Birbhum district for the party in the upcoming panchayat polls.
A Delhi court on Wednesday sent Mondal, the Trinamool Congress Birbhum district president, to Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till March 10 in an alleged money laundering case related to the cattle smuggling case.
The midnight court passed the order on a plea moved by the central agency, which sought his 14-day custody and said the accused was required to be quizzed.
"They have taken away only one Anubrata Mondal. But there are hundreds of Anubrata Mondal in the TMC. If the party allows me, I am ready to take over his role and win the district for the party in the upcoming panchayat polls.
"The Trinamool Congress is like the Mughal Empire; it cannot be destroyed with a single blow," he told reporters.
Mitra, a former state minister who the CBI arrested in 2014 in the Saradha chit fund case, in the past few weeks, has been vocal about corruption in the TMC and urged the top brass to conduct a proper evaluation within the party.
Although the party leadership declined to comment on the Kamarhati MLA's remark, the opposition BJP was quick to mock him.
"The party has recently lost elections in the Sagardighi bypoll. We would wait for him to take charge of Birbhum as it will only ensure TMC's defeat in the rural elections," BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
The Congress last week secured a seat in the present West Bengal Assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas wrested the minority-dominated Sagardighi constituency from the ruling TMC in a bypoll.
Unlike senior TMC minister Partha Chatterjee, whom the party has shown the door following his arrest by the ED in the school jobs scam, the party has stood by Anubrata Mondal and retained him as its Birbhum district president.