Ahead of the high-stakes West Bengal Assembly polls, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) expelled Minu Bauri, recently appointed President of the Purulia District Trinamool Mahila Congress, on Sunday.
The decision was taken by the approval of party chairperson Mamata Banerjee, the official release said.
The move came as the state is preparing for its two-phase polls on April 23 and 29. The results are set for May 4.
TMC secured a landslide victory in the 2021 election with 213 seats. BJP gained ground by increasing its seats to 77 in the last cycle.
Meanwhile, the expulsion of Bauri came after she decided to contest the elections as an Independent candidate after being denied an official TMC ticket. The party has adopted a "zero-tolerance" policy toward rebel candidates in this election cycle to prevent the splitting of votes in the Bankura and Purulia districts.
Also, in the months leading up to the election, Bauri faced internal scrutiny regarding the management of local welfare funds and MGNREGA wage distributions in her constituency (Raghunathpur).
Her expulsion is also linked to the party's intensified "clean-up" drive ahead of the assembly polls.
As part of the TMC's broader strategy to shed the "corruption" tag used by the opposition (BJP), several local leaders with pending complaints—including Bauri—were sidelined or expelled to improve the party's image among rural voters.
The Trinamool leadership, led locally by district observers, decided to field "fresh faces" with cleaner public records to counter the BJP’s growing influence in the Junglemahal belt- a forested region in West Bengal comprising the districts of Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura, and Paschim Medinipur.