FORWARD BLOC

Forward Bloc turns elder in Cooch Behar

The Forward Bloc has emerged as the leading leftist force in Cooch Behar from the viewpoint of the poll result. The voters of the district offered them four seats but wiped out the big brother, the CPI-M. The Forward Bloc contested in five seats and was able to regain a lost seat at Dinhata. Its bid to regain the Sitai seat however was foiled by the Congress.

In north Bengal too, the FB became the second largest party among the Left Front partners. It is now a major topic of discussion among the political observers of the region. It astonished them that the demised FB leader Kamal Guha fought against the CPI-M from within the LF but he was never able to make his party so stronger. His son, Mr Udayan Guha is very close and friendly with the CPI-M and now he proved his worth by making the party stronger and winding up the big brother. At present, the CPI-M is at the mercy of the FB in Cooch Behar.

The Forward Bloc's Cooch Behar district unit secretary and also a secretariat member of the state unit, Mr Udayan Guha however claimed that they fielded candidates as Left Front sponsored ones. The winners and the defeated ones are Left Front candidates. They belong to no certain party as he clarified. Earlier too they were stronger enough among the leftists in the district, he added. At the same time he made it clear that the district unit secretary of the CPI-M was always the convener of the district Left Front and that system may continue in future too.

Mentionworthy, the CPI-M failed to retain any of its seats in Cooch Behar in the Assembly election. The Forward Bloc has bagged four seats. The winners are : Mr Udayan Guha (Dinhata), Mr Paresh Adhikary (Mekhliganj), Mr Akshoy Thakur (Cooch Behar Dakshin) and Mr Nagendra Nath Ray (Cooch Behar Uttar).