Kolkata, June 27 (TIWN) CPI(M)'s claim that it pressured Yashwant Sinha, the opposition candidate for Presidential poll, to resign as the Trinamool Congress national vice president does not seem convincing to a large section of party insiders.

This logic put forward by the party's general secretary Sitaram Yechury is just an attempt to pacify the growing dissatisfaction within the party, especially in West Bengal, over the support to Yashwant Sinha considering that in West Bengal the party's prime rival in Trinamool Congress.

These frustrated sections within the party have pointed out that it is a matter of tradition and convention that any person cannot be a member or a post-holder in any political party at the time of contesting presidential poll. They have also drawn reference to Late Pranab Mukherjee who resigned from the primary membership of Congress before contesting the presidential poll in 2012.  A central committee member of CPI(M) said on strict condition of anonymity that it is increasingly becoming difficult to convince the "comrades" at lower level to refrain from expressing their anguish over supporting Sinha's candidature. "In fact, their logic to an extent is also correct since it is our party workers at the grassroots level who are facing the maximum atrocities in the hands of ruling party activists and police in West Bengal," he said.