People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL

Pradesh Congress Joins Hands With BJP

To Form ZP Board In Maldah

IN A move that had opportunism written all over it, the Pradesh Congress allowed the BJP to hitch onto its political bandwagon to form the Zilla Parishad board in Maldah.  The rightist combination, which also included the Trinamul Congress, managed to defeat the Left Front candidates for the posts of the Sabhadhipati (chairman) and the Saha-sabhadhipati (deputy chairman) by single vote margins.

The CPI(M) state secretary, Anil Biswas said that by entering into an alliance with the BJP, the Pradesh Congress “has once again demonstrated its political trait of brooking compromise with the forces of religious fundamentalism.”

It is recalled that the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) has made it clear earlier that the Congress adopted an opportunistic line of “soft Hindutva” while seeking to emerge as an alternative to the BJP in Gujarat.  The Congress, commented Biswas, was “never sincere in its battle against communalism” and that the Maldah compromise merely underwrote and confirmed that suspicion.

When asked to comment on the shift from its pronounced stand of secular politics, Atish Chandra Sinha, one of the senior most leader of the Pradesh Congress, said that the Pradesh Congress “would do  whatever is necessary to ensure that the Left, and in particular the Marxists, are kept out of office.” The Trinamul Congress would not laud the Pradesh Congress move and called it an example of political desperation for survival.

Elsewhere, the Left Front has won the posts of the Sabhadhipati and the Saha-sabhadhipati in Birbhum, Burdwan, Bankura, Hooghly, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, South Dinajpore, North Dinajpore, Nadia, Howrah, Midnapore(East), Midnapore(West), and Purulia.  The Pradesh Congress won the elections in Murshidabad.

It is notable that the posts of the Sabhadhipati for the following districts were kept reserved for women candidates: North Dinajpore, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Purulia, Bankura, Hooghly, and Murshidabad.

Holding aloft the principled stand of the CPI(M) in forming the panchayat boards in the three tiers, the Party has decided to expel from its ranks 31 persons who had flouted the Party norms.  During the  formation of the rural boards in 3,218 Gram Panchayats, Anil Biswas informed PD/INN, the party norms were transgressed in 13 instances, and because of which the expulsions were implemented.