Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has identified infighting as the cause for the Trinamul Congress’s electoral setbacks in Malda and accused the BJP, Left and the Congress of forming a nexus to bag the district’s Lok Sabha seats.
“The BJP won a parliamentary seat in Malda (last year) while the other was bagged by the Congress. This means that the Congress, the Left and the BJP joined hands to defeat Trinamul and share the seats in Malda,” Mamata told a party workers’ meet in Malda.
“We have established our political supremacy even in Murshidabad (an erstwhile Congress fortress). But something goes wrong in Malda. Here, leaders are busy fighting with one another. I could have held a closed-door meeting with the leaders, but I would not do so until Trinamul wins convincingly in Malda. I have decided to assign specific responsibilities to our leaders,” the Trinamul chief said.
Keeping in mind the upcoming civic polls in Englishbazar, Mamata has tasked former minister Krishnendu Choudhury with looking after 10 of the 29 wards. Englishbazar MLA Nihar Ghosh has been asked to take care of six wards. Vice-chairman Dulal Sarkar will supervise polls in seven wards.
District Trinamul youth president Amlan Bhaduri and former chairman Narendranath Tiwary will monitor two municipal wards each. Asish Kundu, former chairman of the district primary school council, and Sumala Agarwalla, district cooperative chairperson would look one ward each.
Malda has 12 Assembly segments, of which Trinamul couldn’t win a single in last year’s Lok Sabha elections. Though the party has four MLAs, three of them defected from other parties while one was an Independent.
Mamata on Thursday asked Choudhury to supervise the Habibpur and Gazole Assembly seats while former minister Sabitri Mitra was asked to take care of the Manikchak Assembly constituency. Sarkar, on the other hand, was asked to move across the district, including Englishbazar and Old Malda.
“Out of 12 seats, she gave responsibilities of barely four Assembly seats… These are the areas where the BJP is strong. She will distribute the responsibilities of the other seats later,” said a source.
