Pranab Mukherjee after meeting Adhir Chowdhury at Behrampore central jail. Picture by Alamgir Hossain

Behrampore, Nov. 26: Adhir Chowdhury loyalists trained their guns on an embarrassed Pranab Mukherjee at a meeting of the Murshidabad district Congress committee today.

The defence minister and state Congress president, who was here to call on Adhir at Behrampore central jail where he has been lodged since November 20, was criticised for not doing enough for the MP accused in a double murder case.

Chowdhury welcomed Mukherjee and urged him to agitate against his arrest. But his supporters attacked the minister for not issuing a statement against the arrest from Delhi.

“You people at the helm were busy doing unimportant jobs in Delhi when Adhir was subjected to humiliation in custody,” a district party member was learnt to have said at the meeting, which lasted for over an hour.

Bowing to pressure, Mukherjee promised that action would be taken against Atish Sinha, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in the Assembly, for not participating in the party-sponsored agitation on the Adhir issue.

Later, Mukherjee told a news conference that Sinha, an eight-time MLA from Kandi in Murshidabad, had not acted properly by “publicly speaking against Adhir in the media”.

“We shall take action against Sinha in accordance with party rules,” he said. “Adhir is a victim of a political conspiracy. So we should all protest against his arrest and detention. Those who shun the agitation will be taken to task.”

Mukherjee also criticised former mayor Subrata Mukherjee for “overstepping” his limits by calling a meeting on behalf of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) here on Monday when Chowdhury will be produced in court. “Who is he (Subrata) to call a meeting here on behalf of the PCC?” he asked.

Tomorrow’s PCC executive committee meeting is expected to be stormy, sources said.

The state Congress chief also ruled out the possibility of forming a mahajot (grand alliance) with the Trinamul Congress in the run-up to the next year’s Assembly polls. “We should take a lesson from the 2001 Assembly polls,” he said.

in which the Congress was humiliated in the name of Mahajot. So, let us not repeat the blunder,” he said.

“Some of our members still may have a liking for an alliance with Mamata to counter the ruling CPM in the coming Assembly polls. But I am opposed to any sort of Mahajot and rather warn them against any such move,” Mukherjee told members at the party meeting here.