Civic body members' rift

Statesman News Service

MALDA, May 16 : While the district authorities instructed the LF-backed Independent chairman of the English Bazaar Municipality to step down as per the High Court order, fourteen members of the Opposition are yet to be united about proving their majority, owing to internal squabbles.Though the 14 Opposition councillors convened a meeting to chalk out a plan to prove their majority, the problem remained unresolved. Eight Trinamul councillors were divided after the result of the Assembly election arrived.Three of them belong to the lobby of Miss Mamata Banerjee but the other five presently belong to the lobby of the Congress MLA in English Bazaar, Mr Krishnendu Choudhury , who was a Trinamul member until a few weeks ago. When the Opposition councillors, including the Congress and the BJP, collaborated and offered the post of chairman to a Congress councillor, Mr Biswanath Guho, the present district Trinamul chief, Mr Dulal Sarkar was unwilling to accept Mr Guho, on the basis of his activities in the Assembly election. Mr Guho and Mr Sarkar had cast their votes in favour of the LF-backed chairman during the election, ignoring their parties’ whips. As a result, the Left Front had formed the board with the support of 11 of the 25 members. Yesterday, Mr Guho did not wish to attend the meeting in the presence of Mr Sarkar. Besides Mr Sarkar, two other councillors have decided not to enter into an alliance with the Congress and the BJP. Though the newly-elected English Bazaar MLA, Mr Choudhury, wanted to form the board without a Trinamul councillor, Mr Sarkar and two councillors did not agree to the proposal. Seven Trinamul councillors, and five Congress councillors worked for Mr Choudhury in the Assembly election. Mr Dulal Sarkar was the Trinamul candidate for the Malda Assembly seat. He had nominated his wife as Trinamul candidate for the English Bazaar seat.