CPM councillors and supporters in Nadia’s Taherpur staged a demonstration protesting the Bengal government’s decision not to invite the chairman of the party-ruled Taherpur Municipality to the review meeting of civic bodies that
chief minister Mamata Banerjee held at Nabanna on Monday.

Although chairpersons of all civic bodies in the state were invited, the government left out CPM-ruled Taherpur Municipality, along with the Trinamool Congress-ruled Purulia’s Jhalda Municipality from the meeting.

In the 2022 civic poll, the CPM formed the board winning eight of the 13 wards at Taherpur. Trinamool won only in five wards. In Jhalda, Trinamool lost the board to Congress but later a majority of Congress and Independent councillors switched sides to help the ruling party take control of the board.

Mamata, however, justified the decision not to invite the Taherpur and Jhalda Municipality chairpersons to the review meeting.

“I could not call two municipalities in the meeting as they are run by other parties. I can scold my party colleagues, but not others,” said the chief minister.

Condemning the decision, the CPM termed the state government’s attitude as “step-motherly” and party councillors staged a demonstration in front of the civic body office and led a protest rally in the town.

Later in the evening, several CPM supporters joined a live session on their respective Facebook pages to condemn the decision and spread the protest against the Trinamool-led state government on social media.

Uttamananda Das, chairman of Taherpur Municipality, termed the decision as “very unfortunate”.

“I feel very pained with such a discriminating attitude of the chief minister, who deprived the people of Taherpur to share their troubles with her during the meeting. If she is keen about ensuring development and civic services for people then why such discrimination,” Das told The Telegraph.

“People in Taherpur have been suffering from poor road conditions. There are problems with basic amenities like health care and water supply. We are trying our best to solve problems with available funds and our own resources, which are not enough to manage the situation. So if invited, I could have drawn her attention to these problems to seek a solution,” Das added.

“This is not the first occasion, we suffered due to such step-motherly attitude. I was never invited even at the district-level administrative meetings held by the chief minister,” Das said.

The chief minister, however, accused the “municipalities run by other parties” of non-cooperation.

The chairman of Jhalda Municipality, Suresh Agarwal, said he was unwell for the last few days and didn’t know why he had not been invited to the meeting.

“How can I know why the chief minister didn’t invite me to the meeting? I also don’t know what information she has on Jhalda municipality. I couldn’t attend my office for the past four to five days,” said Agarwal of Trinamool.