Developing Cooch Behar, CM fulfils dream of ex-FB leader

The development projects under taken in Cooch Behar by the Mamata Banerjee government in the past four-and-half years has fulfilled the dreams of Kamal Guha, who was a Forward Bloc leader and father of the Trinamool Congress candidate from Dinhata. This has come up as the main thrust area of campaign by the candidate Udayan Guha.  

Kamal was eight times MLA from Dinhata Assembly constituency and was also a member of the Left Front cabinet. The veteran leader, who had been minister of some crucial departments for decades till a year before his death in 2007, had dreamt of bringing a sea change in North Bengal from all aspects. However, his dreams of an overall development of the region were shattered owing to the apathy of a section of leaders during the Left Front regime.

Udyan, who was elected as an MLA of the Forward Bloc, had joined the Trinamul Congress in October 2015 stating that Banerjee was the key figure of development in West Bengal and he wanted to take part in development project. 

This time, the Left Front has filed Akshay Thakur, a Forward Bloc leader, against Guha from Dinhata Assembly constituency. His opponents are not leaving on stone unturned to spread canard against him for joining the Trinamool Congress. 

Guha, however, is not ready to give much importance to the canard and giving thrust on campaigning that Banerjee in the past four-and-a-half-year has fulfilled the dreams of his father that he had dreamt for North Bengal decades ago. 

Citing a few examples of the projects undertaken by the Trinamool Congress government in the past few years, Guha said: “All the projects would have got implemented at least 20 years ago if the colleagues of my father had helped him a bit for an overall development of the region.”

Setting up an administration building Uttar Kanya for North Bengal, exchange of enclaves between India and Bangladesh and construction of a bridge over a river connecting Dinhata and Sitai are some of the major projects that have been taken for the development of the region during the Trinamool Congress regime.

With the completion of the construction work of the bridge, of which 75 per cent of the work is over, one will just need to travel 20 km to reach Sitai from Dinhata. At present, one needs to travel around 80 km to reach the same place from Dinhata.

The people of the region had to run from pillar to post urging to construct the bridge earlier. 

“They had also approached my father and he had taken initiative to get the work done as he always used to give priority to the need of common people. But for some reason the project was not undertaken during the erstwhile Left Front government,” Guha said, adding that he found people agreeing to him and saying that Banerjee had undertaken the tasks which was planned decades ago, but not undertaken.