Trinamool Congress ministers met PM Manmohan Singh today at his residence and submitted their resignations to him.
Mukul Roy, Saugata Ray, Sisir Adhikari, Mohan Jatua, Sultan Ahmed and Sudip Bandopadhyay are TMC ministers who resigned. TMC MPs are now in a meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee and will hand over a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee withdrawing support to the UPA.
Railway Minister Mukul Roy along with five other Trinamool ministers arrived in the capital to hand over the resignation letters, three days after the party dramatically announced it was quitting the UPA government over its economic policies.
Mukul Roy said the Trinamool Congress will launch nationwide protests against FDI in retail.
"Our party has decided to protest against the hike in diesel price, withdrawal of subsidy from LPG and FDI in retail," he said.
Roy dubbed the government decisions as anti-people and said the Trinamool Congress cannot support it.
On Tuesday, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee had announced her decision to withdraw support to the UPA protesting the Centre's decisions to hike diesel prices, withdraw subsidy on cooking gas and allow FDI in multi-brand retail.
The Trinamool, with its 19 MPs, quit the government in protest against the diesel price hike, a cap on subsidised cooking gas cylinders and FDI in multi-brand retail.
Both Mamata and the Congress are at loggerheads, accusing each other of not communicating over the former's protest against FDI in retail, and the diesel and LPG price hikes. On Wednesday, while Union finance minister P Chidambaram claimed that the Centre had fruitlessly tried to contact Mamata over the past four days, the Trinamool chief tore into the Centre's contention, saying the Union government was resorting to "untruths".
