A section of Kamtapuris, tribal community and proponents of Greater Cooch Behar have forged an alliance — the Kamtapuri Bhumiputra Mahajote — and decided to contest in 40 of 54 Assembly seats from north Bengal.

The first such alliance in north Bengal in recent times, it can split votes of established political parties.

The Kamtapuri Bhumiputra Mahajote, announced at Jalpaiguri on Sunday, comprises entities such as the Kamtapur People’s Party (United), the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party, the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), the Biswa Rajbanshi Unnayan Mancha, the Kamtapuri Rajbanshi Samannay Samity, the Uttarbanga Samajbadi Party, the Kshatriya Samity (Uttarbanga) and the Kamtapur Democratic Party.

Nikhil Roy from the KPP (United), who is the president of the alliance, said: “We will field our candidates in 40 seats.”

The issues the alliance flagged are inclusion of Kamtapur language in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, tribal land rights, minimum wages for tea workers, measures to safeguard the “sons of the soil” and a separate state of Kamtapur.

Alliance leaders criticised both the BJP and Trinamul for using their people as “vote banks”.

They added they were open to post-poll pacts with any party.

However, many political watchers pointed out that the alliance would definitely be a headache for major political parties. “There are at least 15 Assembly seats, especially in the tea belt, where the tribal populace is a deciding factor,” said an observer.

A large population of the influential Rajbanshi community resides in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts.

Observers said even though the alliance has been formed it can’t claim that the entities under it represent their communities in totality. “Many tribals, Kamtapuris and other community members vote for Trinamul and the BJP. One cannot say that the alliance represents the entire gamut of the communities but in this competitive election, this alliance cannot be written off too in terms of influencing the outcome,” said an observer.

Parimal Barman, treasurer of the newly formed body criticised Union home minister Amit Shah for allegedly failing to keep the promise “to develop a new tourism circuit by allocating funds to the tune of Rs 250 crore”.

Alliance leader Mahesh Roy criticised the Trinamul-ruled state government for granting “paltry” funds to the Kamtapuri and Rajbanshi development boards.

“While an autonomous council in Assam is getting Rs 125 crore every year, the (Bengal) state government allocated only Rs 10 crore each for Kamtapuri and Rajbanshi development boards. This amount of funding is insufficient,” said Roy.

Community leaders also said that Kamtapuri and Rajbanshi communities were same and that the state should stop “creating a division within the community” by according separate recognition to Kamtapuri and Rajbanshi.

“We will extent support to any party that will help fulfill our demands,” said Roy.