Early claims of victory by Left Front

Statesman News Service

MALDA, May 12: Raising the issue of major corruption charges against the Congress-led panchayat samiti and Zilla Parishad, the CPI-M and Left Front leaders are confident that it would come to power in Malda ZP with an overwhelming majority. Addressing a rally of chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Bulbulchandi yesterday, the state environment and parliamentary affairs minister Mr Sailen Sarkar had announced: “Out of 34 Zilla Parishad seat the Left Front candidates would win in 30 seats”. He did not name the four ZP seats where the LF candidates will be defeated. Mr Sarkar criticised the role of Malda ZP in the last five years, run by the Congress-led Trinamul and BJP Alliance and pointed out several corruption charges and misappropriation of funds in several gram panchayats and panchayat samitis. The other CPI-M leaders have calculated the LF candidates will bag more than 20 zilla parishad seats.In 2003, the LF had bagged only 16 seats out of 33 ones and the Congress had won 15 seats and formed the board with the help of elected BJP and Trinamul members. The district secretary of the CPI-M and convener of the district LF, Mr Jiban Moitra said: “Due to disunity among LF leaders and candidates we had lost five seats in rural polls 2003. Five CPI-M candidates were defeated due to disunity factor where RSP candidates had secured decent number of votes narrowing down the margin of the CPI-M candidates”. “But this year we have been united in ZP seat adjustment with the RSP and expected better results,” Mr Moitra added.Mr Moitra said: “We cannot claim all panchayats run by the CPI-M or LF are absolutely corruption free but there is no such instance like Congress where whole Congress members of a panchayat samiti are lodged in jail.” Pointing out corruption charges against the Congress led Kaliachak III panchayat samiti (PS) Mr Moitra said: “Almost all members of Kaliachak III PS including sabhadhipati, saha-sabhapati and karmadhykshya are in jail custody on charges of misappropriation of funds allotted for flood relief”.