Mayor Asok Bhattacharya and Left councillors of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation started campaign for the upcoming civic elections with ally Congress through a citizens’ convention here on Monday.

At the convention, he briefed the audience on the works carried out by the civic board.

Bhattacharya, who is also the MLA of Siliguri, shared the dais at Dinabandhu Mancha with both the Congress MLAs of Darjeeling district – Sankar Malakar and Sunil Tirkey. They also published a booklet containing details of the activities taken up by the civic board since 2015, that is, during his tenure as the mayor.

“Most of the times during our tenure, we have faced non-cooperation from the state. It was only couple of months back that some funds were released. Even then, we have carried out development works here and could provide proper civic services to the residents,” the mayor said.

According to him, the civic board in its first four fiscal has executed 1,035 projects across the town by spending Rs 80 crores. “However, a comprehensive drinking water project and an underground sewerage system are some projects which need to be done for Siliguri. Because of lack of initiative from the state’s side, the issue of traffic congestion could not be addressed.”