MUNICIPAL ELECTION

CPM-FB meet to attain unity in civic polls

COOCH BEHAR, June 3: The second-round bipartite talk was held today between the leaders of the CPI-M and the Forward Bloc in Cooch Behar today. Seat sharing in the municipal polls at Mekhliganj and Haldibari was the main agenda of discussion. Unity of Left Front into the formation of three-tier panchayat boards was also discussed.

After the meeting, district CPI-M secretary and district Left Front convenor Mr Chandi Pal said both the CPI-M and the FB agreed to fight jointly at Haldibari Municipality. Here, the CPI-M will field candidates in seven seats and the FB in four seats. As no understanding over seat sharing was achieved for Mekhliganj Municipality the leaderships of the two parties will meet again at Mekhliganj tomorrow.

Mr Pal admitted that the dialogue was left incomplete because of disunity over the fate of one seat only. Both the LF partners agreed to fight at four seats each but the problem arose over the ninth seat. In the last civic polls the FB had fielded a ghost candidate in Mekhliganj and now that seat turned as the problematic one, he said. He hoped that a consensus would be attained at tomorrow's meeting.

District Forward Bloc secretary Mr Udayan Guha too hoped that a formula may come out tomorrow to attain LF unity in the municipal election in Mekhliganj. It was decided today that no party would field any ghost candidate. He pointed out that distrust was there among the Forward Bloc supporters at Mekhliganj against the CPI-M. "We should do something to draw an end to it", he said. Tomorrow, they will discuss the seat sharing issue with the local FB leaders prior to the bipartite meet, Mr Guha said.

It was learnt that after the previous municipal election in Mekhliganj it was decided that the two LF partners would share the chairmanship of the board for two-and-half-year each but the CPI-M failed to keep its promise. The CPI-M chairman of the outgoing civic board reportedly denied leaving the chair in favour of the Forward Bloc and that irritated the Forward Bloc in entering any fresh unity move with the CPI-M. []