Two faces of Left Front unity in Cooch Behar after second round of talks between CPI-M and Forward Bloc

 

COOCH BEHAR, April 6: The CPI-M and the Forward Bloc failed to attain the expected unity for the upcoming panchayat elections in Cooch Behar district even in the second round of bipartite talks held today. Leaders of both the parties however claimed that there was Left Front unity but a little difference is still exists over sharing of seats.

 

On Sunday afternoon, the leaders of both the parties sat at Cooch Behar district CPI-M office for the second time to sort out problems and to find a way out to fight the panchayat elections unitedly as Left Front partners. The first round of talks was held on Friday.

 

General secretary of Cooch Behar district Forward Bloc, Mr Udayan Guha clearly stated that they saw no ray of hope during five hours of discussion held on two days. "We are yet to achieve an understanding over sharing of seats though we honour the Left Front's formula", he said. It became a system in this district to field ghost candidates even after reaching to a unity and claim the elected ghost candidates as their own by the parties concerned, Mr Guha said.

 

The Forward Bloc leader said a unity was there in the panchayat polls in 1978 between the CPI-M and the Forward Bloc. Since then both the LF partners never achieved a total unity in the rural polls. Number of seats were increased in the Zilla Parishad tier but the Forward Bloc is still have to get the right to claim more than twelve seats. This cannot be allowed forever.

 

Though no unity was achieved Mr Guha is hopeful about it. "We must welcome if the unity can be attained in block level for the gram panchayat and panchayat samity seats", he said. Mr Guha claimed that there was Left Front unity but the difference is over sharing of seats only. They may have to contest against the CPI-M in the elections as 'friendly fight' if the situation demands, he opined. At the same time he declared they would participate in the movement against price hike jointly with the CPI-M from 10 April to 16 April.

 

Mr Guha opined that the Forward Bloc should get seats according to its organisational strength. One should not consider who was defeated in which seat in the previous election. If one takes the seat sharing issue as the scale to measure the Left Front unity then it was not achieved today, he explained.

 

On the otherhand, district CPI-M secretary Mr Chandi Pal said both the parties would discuss at bloc level for sharing of seats. He hoped that unity will be achieved between the two parties and they will fight the elections unitedly. In Zilla Parishad the difference is over the newly created seats only, he said. On 9 April the leaders of the two parties will meet again to sort out problems, he added. "We already achieved unity as a policy and agreed to follow the Left Front's formula. Now we must try to achieve total unity", he declared. []