MALDA, 9 MARCH: The Congress in Malda is suffering a factional feud over the selection of candidates for the forthcoming English Bazaar civic body poll.
The Congress seems to have soured relations with the Trinamul as well in relation to civic body poll. An alliance in this regard is gradually looking questionable.
Unhappy with a section of the Congress leadership’s unbending attitude towards sharing seats, the Trinamul Congress leadership in Malda has threatened to compete in all of the 25 English Bazaar Municipality (EBM) seats if necessary.
Trouble began after the Congress district president and South Malda MP, AH Khan Choudhury, asked the party district secretary and EBM chairman Mr Narendranath Tiwari to hold a meeting with the English Bazaar Congress MLA, Mr Krishnendu Choudhury, for the primary selection of candidates for the EBM poll.
Mr Krishnendu Choudhury, however, declined to attend any meeting convened by Mr Tiwari to select candidates.
While Mr Tiwari claimed that the party district president had asked him to hold a meeting with the MLA to select candidates for the civic poll, the latter said that he had not received any such instruction from the party district president.
“The district president has written a letter to me and the copy of the letter has been forwarded to the English Bazaar MLA. I sent a letter to the English Bazaar MLA today requesting him for a discussion about primary selection of party candidates for the municipal polls”. Mr Tiwari said.
Mr Choudhury, however, retorted: “The district president has not told me about the meeting and neither did he write any letter to me. Let the MP come to Malda and I would talk to him. I am not a subordinate of the EBM chairman Mr Tiwari and would not discuss about the selection of candidates with him”.
Besides wrangling in the Congress, he proposed alliance between the Congress and the Trinamul Congress also looks askance at this stage.
Having sought 50 per cent of the EBM seats, the Trinamul leadership appears unhappy with the role of the English Bazaar MLA on the seat sharing issue.
“Mr Krishnendu Choudhury held a meeting at ward no. 10 on Sunday and declared that he would contest from the war. How could he do so when the Trinamul Congress candidate Mr Shantanu Saha was elected from the ward? “Moreover, the seat sharing formula is yet to be finalised,” alleged the Trinamul district president Mr Goutam Chakraborty said.
“We apprehend he would not leave two other wards – no. 9 and 12, which had returned Trinamul candidates. We shall field candidates in all 25 seats of the English Bazaar Municipality if the alliance is compromised”, Mr Chakraborty added. Unfazed, the English Bazaar Congress MLA said: “We must leave seats for the Trinamul in accordance with its organisational strength”, he said. SNS
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