TMC names English Bazaar candidate

Statesman News Service

MALDA, April 12: Finally, the Trinamul Congress has projected Mrs Chaitali Sarkar as its candidate for the controversial English Bazaar seat, a decision that has “unofficially” been opposed by the party’s ally, BJP. The Trinamul had been in trouble ever since its former choice for the seat, Mr KN Choudhury, severed relations with the party and joined the Congress. Malda BJP leaders, however, are unhappy with the choice of Mrs Sarkar for the English Bazaar seat. Though the BJP leaders are “officially” tightlipped on the development, they indirectly disclosed that their party would have nominated a better candidate than Mrs Sarkar in English Bazaar. Party sources said the Malda Trinamul Congress was not in a position to nominate the fittest candidate for English Bazaar after the KN Choudhury episode. It was learnt that no other Trinamul leader was interested to contest from English Bazaar.At the last moment, following pressure from the Malda BJP, the Trinamul leader, Mr Dulal Sarkar, proposed the name of his wife and got the approval from the party’s state committee.Mr Sarkar had conveyed to the party that he would contest in English Bazaar leaving the Old Malda Assembly segment, but at the last moment the decision was changed.Now he is contesting in Old Malda and his wife will be contesting from English Bazaar. But most of the Trinamul councillors of English Bazaar and other leaders have decided to support the Congress candidate, Mr Choudhury.After the final announcement, the Trinamul leaders said Miss Mamata Banerjee would be coming to Malda and address a public meeting in English Bazaar town.But the Trinamul workers are not satisfied with Mrs Sarkar selection. They said the move would make a division in the anti-Left vote bank in English Bazaar and help the CPI-M candidate. Citing examples of the last Assembly election’s result in English Bazaar, a group of Congress and Trinamul Congress leaders said the CPI-M candidate had won here, defeating the BJP and Trinamul candidates by a huge margin. Of the total number of votes, the CPI-M candidate, Mr Samar Roy, had secured 59,910 the Congress candidate 38,557 votes, the Trinamul candidate got 32,833 votes and the BJP candidate got 9,313 votes.The total number of anti-Left votes were higher than the votes secured by the CPI-M candidate, political observers said.