ELECTION

Trinamul starts election campaign

COOCH BEHAR, March 18: The Trinamul Congress began it's electioneering in Cooch Behar from this morning. Prior to that they went to Madan Mohan Temple and Nutan Masjid with their party candidate Mr Arghya Roy Pradhan to seek divine blessings to win the poll battle.

After conducting campaign in several areas in the town starting from Ward Number 5 the Trinamul leaders went to district Congress office at Police Line Chaupathi. Here they discussed joint electioneering policy with the district Congress leaders. This is the first ever meeting of the leaderships of the two parties.

Among the leaders on the Trinamul side there were state Trinamul secretary Mr Abdul Jalil Ahmed, district president Mr Rabindra Nath Ghosh, vice-president Mr Niranjan Dutta and candidate Mr Arghya Roy Pradhan. Among the leaders on the Congress side there were PCC member Mr Shyamal Choudhury, district president Mr Biren Kundu, vice-president Mr Dipak Neogi and general secretary Mr Sudha Ranjan Mukherjee.

In the meeting it was decided that joint campaign committees would be formed down to the booth level. The leaders will meet again on 22 March at Panthanivas after a convention of party workers.

As Miss Mamata Banerjee is to visit Cooch Behar on 28 March to address a meeting at Samhati Maidan in Dinhata, the district Trinamul president Mr Ghosh invited the district Congress president Mr Kundu to attend that meeting with five leaders to take seat on the dais. Mr Kundu accepted the invitation.

From now on the Trinamul Congress leaders will fix programmes after consulting with their counterparts in the Congress.

After the joint meeting, Mr Ghosh said lack of unity between Congress and Trinamul Congress was a baseless propaganda only. "We will fight jointly to defeat the Left Front", he said. Echoing him Mr Kundu too said that joint efforts would be taken to pull down the Left Front from the power.