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urabaya Deputy Mayor Bambang D.H. has tendered his resignation from the central executive board of his nominating party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), amid ongoing conflict between the city legislature and Mayor Tri Rismaharini.

Bambang assured that his resignation had nothing to do with the mayor but said that it was partly moved by the growing accusation that he was behind the heated conflict between the mayor and the legislators.

“I was accused of having the intent to take the mayoral post. Through the resignation I want to show that the accusation was baseless. I don’t have such an ambition,” Bambang said Thursday as quoted by detiksurabaya.com.

Bambang, who is also a member of PDI-P’s East Java provincial executive board, said his resignation letter had been sent to the central executive board on Wednesday. He expressed confidence it would be approved as doing so he would have more time to concentrate on the party.

“This is for the sake of the party,” said Bambang, who departed for Jakarta on Thursday afternoon for a follow up meeting with the PDI-P central executive board on the conflict between PDI-P Surabaya and Tri Rismaharini, or better known as Risma, which the party nominated in last year’s mayoral election.

The meeting reportedly will be attended by executives from PDI-P East Java and Surabaya, PDI-P municipal councilors, Risma and Bambang. “We probably will also discuss Pak Bambang’s resignation proposal,” said chairman of PDI-P Surabaya, Wisnu Sakti Buana.

Previously a reconciliation meeting was held in Surabaya on Wednesday between PDI-P East Java, Risma, Bambang D.H., Wisnu Sakti Buana and speaker of PDI-P faction at the municipal legislature Syaifudin Zuhri.

Yet, information regarding what had been discussed at the meeting was not available. “Everything will be reported to the central executive board. We will make it public after the meeting with the board on Friday,” PDI-P East Java chairman Sirmadji told reporters after the meeting Wednesday.

Separately, PDI-P secretary-general Tjahyo Kumolo confirmed Thursday that the party’s central executive board had not yet received Bambang’s resignation proposal. “We haven’t received it,” he said as quoted by detik.com on Thursday.

He said whether the central executive board would accept or reject the proposal would depend on the consideration based on the board making a decision through a plenary.

Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said that there was no strong reason to fire Tri Rismaharini, the first ever female mayor of Surabaya, from her post. He assured that even though policy was considered to have been wrongly issued by Risma, the 2011 Mayoral Regulation on advertisement billboard taxes, it was not a strong reason to oust the mayor. “Even a bylaw can be wrongly issued. That’s what regulation evaluations are for. Should there be a wrong bylaw, we correct it. This is just a mayoral regulation that the governor can fix,” Gamawan said as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday.

A special committee at the Surabaya municipal legislative council has previously recommended that Tri Rismaharini, who has been at her post for the last three months, was ousted from her post because she was considered to have wrongly issued a policy.

The mayoral regulation on billboard taxes was considered to have violated the procedure of issuing a regional regulation. The special committee said the regulation would make advertisement billboards very expensive to produce.

Meanwhile, the plan to oust Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini was getting weaker on Thursday because the Democratic Party withdrew its support.

“Yes we’ve withdrawn the support. This is an order from our superiors,” chairman of the regional office of the Democratic Party Wisnu Wardhana said as quoted by detik.com.

Wisnu said he would order his party’s faction at the Surabya legislative council to annul the support.