CPM young brigade targets Sailen

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Sept 20: Upset with the defeat in the by-poll, the CPI-M’s young brigade is holding senior CPI-M leader and state minister Mr Sailen Sarkar solely responsible for the loss in the election. A section of CPI-M supporters has also demanded his exit from the party. The agitated cadres are also raising the question of Mr Sarkar’s acceptability as compared to others in the party whose names were proposed for candidature but scrapped by the party’s district leadership. “Despite being a senior leader Mr Sarkar’s popularity is at an ebb. It is puzzling how the party top brass failed to notice that,” is the common refrain among the CPI-M men here. “Fearing disciplinary action we could not protest the leadership’s decision and failed to voice our demand on behalf of leaders such as Mr Pranab Das who contested in the last election or Mr Samar Roy, the former CPI-M MLA from English Bazaar,” the cadres alleged. “Mr Sarkar should quit the party,” said Mr B Jha, a coordination committee member in the Malda DM office. The cadres also believe that a large number of government employees who are CPI-M supporters, did not cast their votes in favour of Mr Sailen Sarkar as Mr Sarkar had allegedly played a negative role to defeat Mr Samar Roy in the Assembly elections. As a result, the Congress got 10,000 votes more than the CPI-M candidate in the just concluded by-poll from the English Bazaar Assembly segment. The CPI-M district leadership, however, continues to side with Mr Sarkar. According to the CPI-M Malda district secretary, Mr Jiban Moitra, Mr Sarkar has “performed well” by increasing 6 per cent votes in comparison to the previous parliamentary elections. “We did not get above 50 per cent votes when the Malda parliamentary constituency was won by the CPI-M. Compared to that, we have succeeded in increasing our percentage of votes this year, which is some kind of an achievement,” he added. Criticising the Congress Mr Moitra said: “The Congress won the Malda seat through an unethical understanding with the BJP.”