Meeting to solve municipal crisis

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Jan. 15: The chairman of the English Bazaar municipality has convened a meeting on 17 January and has served notices to all the councillors, including the seven rebel ones, who had boycotting the meeting for the past two months. The chairman, Mr Narendranath Tiwari, of the Congress-led civic board is still uncertain whether they would attend the meeting or not. It may be noted that the congress-led board had sought help from the LF councillors in order to place the draft budget last month owing to the non-cooperation of the seven councillors, belonging to the Trinamul Congress and the Congress. The chairman has planned to adopt several resolutions at the meeting, including the decision to donate Rs 5 lakh in two installments from the English Bazaar municipality’s own fund for the development of the proposed Gaur Bango Viswavidyalaya. Sources said that the decision to donate money would attract the LF councillors to the meeting to support the decision. They may still continue with their non-cooperation movement with the present Congress-led board. Though the congress chairman, Mr Narendranath Tiwari, refused to comment on the decision to donate funds for the proposed university, he said that there are several agendas, including donation. "Officially the rebel councillors did not confirm me about their stand. I would never approach them personally. I would have to manage things alternatively to run the board," said Mr Narendranath Tiwari. It may be noted that the Congress leaders, including the district president, Mrs Rubi Noor, and the Union minister for information and board casting tried hard to pacify the rebels but failed. As a result of this, the present board is in a crisis. All the seven rebel councillors are being backed by the English Bazaar Congress MLA, Mr KN Choudhury, who was the former chairman of the board and the former district Trinamul congress president.