Bhunia seeks Sonia's permission to stay on as PAC chief

West Bengal Congress leader Manas Bhunia today wrote to party president Sonia Gandhi requesting her to allow him to continue as the chairman of the important Public Accounts Committee.
"I have written a letter to Sonia Gandhi requesting her to allow me to continue as the chairman of the PAC. In the letter I have briefed her about the series of events that had taken place since the nominations for the post of PAC chairman were filed," he told PTI.
"Our party supremo should know how state Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury and Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan have misguided the AICC and the Congress leadership," Bhunia said.

The development came a week after a meeting was convened by Congress general secretary C P Joshi which was attended by Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Abdul Mannan, state party chief Adhir Chowdhury and Bhunia to discuss the contentious issue after the party had favoured a CPI-M representative for the post.
According to Congress sources, Joshi had last week suggested Bhunia to write a letter to the AICC describing the series of events and his wish to continue as the PAC chairman.
After last week's meeting, Chowdhury had said, "The decision over giving the post of PAC chairman to CPI(M) was taken by our party chief Sonia Gandhi. Now if our party chief endorses the decision of Manas Bhuniya keeping the post, then I have no problem. Whatever she decides we will follow that."

Bhunia had been issued a show cause notice after he refused to step down from the post despite repeated requests by party leaders. Thirtynine Congress MLAs had also jointly appealed to Bhunia to step down.
The Congress wanted the PAC chairman's post to go to CPI(M) with which it had contested the West Bengal Assembly election.