BJP plan for civic & rural polls

TT, Siliguri, Aug. 1: BJP state president Rahul Sinha today said the party would contest polls to the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad with its local allies as the NDA.

The BJP has several local partners — the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the Kamtapur Peoples’ Party (Atul Roy faction), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (the John Barla faction).

Representatives of all the parties and organisations met at a private club in Uttarayon here today and vowed to maintain the alliance till the Assembly polls scheduled for 2016.

“We have decided to contest the upcoming elections to the SMC and the SMP together with our allies in the region. The decision was taken in today’s meeting,” Sinha said after the meeting.

According to the state BJP president, the meeting was planned a couple of months back in Delhi.

“Ahead of the Parliament polls, there was an initial discussion with members of our allies in north Bengal. At that meeting, it was planned to hold a meeting and decide on the issue of fighting jointly. Accordingly, we sat today and decided to contest together in all polls in north Bengal till 2016 Assembly polls,” he said. “Our main objective to form an alliance and contest the elections together is to end the misrule of the Trinamul-led state government. We would also work and ensure that the Congress and the CPM do not come to power in the state again,” Sinha said.

At the meeting, representatives of the allies agreed that the issue of sharing seats would be decided only after talking to workers engaged at the grassroots. “The meeting was successful. We will again sit to discuss our common agenda, issues to be raised during campaign and also on sharing seats,” Roshan Giri, the Morcha general secretary, said.

It is, however, final that there would not be more than one candidate in any seat, right from panchayats to Assembly