Balurghat civic polls: Forward Bloc to contest against other Left allies on 2 seats

balurghat: Forward Bloc will contest from two seats in the upcoming Balurghat civic body elections against its other Left Front partners over the strife on seat adjustment issue with the other LF partners, including RSP and CPI (M). The Forward Bloc had earlier demanded to contest from one seat, which was denied by the RSP and the CPI(M).

According to a source, secretary of Balurghat local committee of Forward Bloc Prabir Das filed his nomination from ward no 12 against LF candidate Dhiraj Basu.

Similarly FB candidate Sanghamitra Das tendered her nomination against another LF candidate Nibedita Manna from ward no 24.

Both the FB candidates have also started campaigning against the LF candidates among the voters.

Prabir Das said: "We had demanded only one seat from our LF partners, but they denied. As a result of this, we had taken a unanimous decision to tender nominations from two wards to fight with LF candidates in the upcoming Balurghat civic poll and started campaigning too. I hope the voters will elect us from those two seats convincingly."

State secretary of RSP and local veteran leader of Balurghat Biswanath Chowdhry said: "Forward Bloc denied our direction and fielded candidates from the two seats. Our other partner CPI obeyed our direction over the seat adjustment formula. There will be no impact whatsoever in the poll result despite the whimsical decision of our FB partner."

Meanwhile, the LF leaders had earlier faced enormous trouble in selecting the candidates for all 25 wards of Balurghat civic body.

After a long discussion among the LF partners, they had finally selected candidates with the seat adjustment remaining unsolved with the district FB leaders.

Notably, Balurghat civic poll will be conducted on February 27 with all 108 civic bodies across the state.

Earlier, South Dinajpur district Left Front leadership failed to field candidates in all seats for the upcoming civic polls of Balurghat and Gangarampur municipalities.

The poll is slated to be held on February 27. The list was announced at Balurghat CPI (M) party office in presence of district CPI (M) secretary Narayan Biswas and state secretary of RSP Biswanath Chowdhury.

After the announcement of the party candidates, it was seen that the list was incomplete with the names of candidates for eight seats in the two civic bodies missing.

Of 25 wards in Balurghat, RSP will fight in 19 wards leaving six for CPI (M). In Gangarampur, CPI (M) will contest in 16 seats, leaving one each for RSP and CPI, covering all 18 wards.