District Left Front meet held over seat sharing after fifth round of talks between CPM and FB

 

COOCH BEHAR, April 14: Though the District Left Front convenor Mr Chandi Pal claimed that they achieved ninety percent unity over sharing of seats and progressing towards a total unity of Left Front in the upcoming three-tier panchayat elections, the other partners – Forward Bloc, CPI and RSP are not happy enough about the development.

 

Today, the CPI-M and Forward Bloc leaders sat for the fifth round of talks over seat sharing but the stalemate was not ended as both the parties failed to attain a consensus about the two disputed Zilla Parishad seats. Cooch Behar district Forward Bloc secretary Mr Udayan Guha said they would discuss over the fate of the two seats again on 17 April after submitting nomination papers for 27 seats jointly with the CPI-M. The CPI-M will submit nominations for 18 seats and they will submit for 9 seats. He clearly mentioned that no progress was achieved about the two ZP seats as the situation is still at its old position.

 

After a long awaited meet of the district Left Front, the district LF convenor and district CPI-M secretary Mr Chandi Pal said, they instructed all local LF leaders to work for achieving total unity at Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity tiers. This process should be completed by 16 April. LF partners including CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc should also complete bipartite talks among themselves by this deadline, he said. The seat sharing will be done following the Left Front's guideline, he mentioned.

 

District RSP secretary Mr Gopal Chaki too claimed that no total unity was achieved in today's LF meeting. At ZP tier the LF partners attained an approximate unity and the RSP withdrew its demand for a seat in the ZP tier, Mr Chaki said.

 

Expressing his dissatisfaction over the outcome of today's Left Front meeting, the secretary of Cooch Behar district CPI, Mr Surath Chakraborty said they are not ready to give up their demand for a seat in the ZP tier. "After discussing the matter at our party we may field separate candidate", he said. In GP and PS tiers they will try to attain unity with other LF partners, he added. []