Cakewalk for Asok as Cong, BJP walk

Asok Bhattacharya being congratulated after becoming the mayor by
Nantu Pal, the Trinamul contestant for the post. Pic: Kundan Yolmo

AVIJIT SINHA, TT, Siliguri, May 18: CPM veteran Asok Bhattacharya was today elected mayor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation, bringing the Left back to power in the civic body after six years in an election where Trinamul has washed out its rivals elsewhere in Bengal.

Dilip Singh, a district committee member of the CPM, was elected the corporation chairman.

Immediately after being elected the mayor, Bhattacharya spoke of seeking "co-operation" from the state and central governments and from "all 47 councillors".

Trinamul had nominated Nantu Paul to contest for the mayor's chair and had put up Ranjan Sarkar against Singh.

The Left has 24 (23+1 Independent) of the 47 seats in the SMC, while Trinamul has 17 councillors.

A CPM leader said today that the Left party got jittery after Trinamul put up their candidates and kept a watch on its councillors fearing cross-voting.

Bhattacharya had yesterday said some of the party councillors received calls from Trinamul asking them to cross-vote. Sources said at least three councillors had been contacted.

The oath-taking ceremony started at 1pm today and all 47 winners were present. The Congress and the BJP's six councillors abstained from voting, bringing the majority mark down to 21, which the Left achieved easily.

Immediately after the oath, S.S. Ahluwalia, BJP MP from Darjeeling, took away the two party councillors. Similarly, Congress councillor Sujoy Ghatak walked out with the three other winners of his party.

"The moment these six councillors walked out of the conference hall, it was clear that it was just a matter of time that Asok Bhattacharya's and Dilip Singh's names would be announced as winners. The speculation of cross-voting ended after the six left," a senior Trinamul councillor said.

Ballot papers were distributed and the councillors voted around 2.30pm. About an hour later, the name of Bhattacharya was announced as the winner. He had defeated Paul 24-16 - a vote of a Trinamul councillor was cancelled because of a wrong marking on the ballot paper.

Thousands of Left supporters and workers who had assembled on the SMC premises raised slogans in favour of Bhattacharya.

Singh was announced the winner about half-an-hour later. He beat Trinamul's Sarkar 24-17.

The tally showed that Trinamul's plan of engineering a cross-voting had failed.

"Trinamul leaders had made tall claims but could not create fissures among us. We hope the party has realised today that people have voted to make them sit in the Opposition," a Left councillor said.

Bhattacharya and Singh were administered the oath of secrecy by Anurag Srivastava, the district magistrate of Darjeeling.

They were taken to their respective chambers, where they sat for some minutes. Then they walked up to the dais for a felicitation.

Bhattacharya, while addressing the 3,000-odd gathering, said: "We have been entrusted with a huge responsibility. We seek the co-operation from the state and central governments, from the municipal affairs and urban development minister and also from the north Bengal development minister. We are not here to do politics of revenge and want to work with the active support and co-operation of all 47 councillors."

Bhattacharya was the state urban development minister in the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led government.

A political observer said: "For an experienced politician and a former member of the state cabinet, it is not difficult to assess that the Left can run the civic body smoothly only if there is co-operation from the state and the Centre. He has clarified time and again that he does not want to get into any tussle with the state. If there is non-cooperation from the state's side, the new mayor will have the option to criticise the state during his political campaigns."

While the Left had the numbers to win the election, Trinamul's talk of cross-voting did cause a last-minute scare, CPM insiders conceded today.

"Party leaders and workers started keeping a watch on the councillors. In the last 48 hours, the councillors were kept busy in the district CPM office. Today, we hired a bus to take all the councillors to the SMC, which is hardly a kilometre from the district CPM office. All 24, including Independent Arabinda Ghosh, reached there at 11.15am, about two hours ahead of the oath-taking," a CPM source said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BIRESWAR BANERJEE AND SOUMYA DE SARKAR