Trinamul says it bye to BJP

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Aug. 13: The Trinamul Congress today named its candidate for the Malda Lok Sabha by-poll. Mr Prakash Singhee, who joined the party recently leaving the Congress, will be fighting on a Trinamul ticket from Malda this year.At a convention organised here today, the Malda district Trinamul chief, Mr Dulal Sarkar, said this year they will “experimentally” not go with an alliance with the BJP in the Lok Sabha by-poll. “The objective of this decision is to examine our organisational strength,” Mr Sarkar said. On the other hand, the BJP leaders are planning to field a local Hindu candidate from Malda to bag votes, particularly in the Habibpur assembly segment. The BJP had earlier used its Muslim candidates thrice to take on the former MP, ABA Ghani Choudhury, but failed. The district BJP leadership has sent the names of 13 prospective candidates from the district to the state leaders for their final nod. It may be recalled that the BJP had been able to increase its vote bank remarkably and the Congress saw a sharp drop in its vote bank at Habibpur in the recently concluded assembly polls. In today’s convention, state leaders of the Trinamul Congress, including Mr Mukul Roy, Mr Madan Mitra and Mr Sultan Ahmed, were present.