Siliguri rural polls on Oct 3 - Left and Trinamul say candidate list ready

AVIJIT SINHA, TT, Siliguri, Sept. 3: The West Bengal State Election Commission today issued the notification that the three-tier polls of the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad would be held on October 3.

"The notification was issued today, along with other details like the dates for submission of nominations, scrutiny and withdrawal," Sushanta Ranjan Upadhyay, the state election commissioner, told The Telegraph over the phone from Calcutta today. (See chart)

The SMP area is spread across four blocks in the Siliguri subdivision - Matigara, Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa.

When the SMP polls were held last in June 2009, the Congress and Trinamul had contested as allies.

Most of the seats were won by the Left and the Congress, and Trinamul was in the third position.

After Trinamul came to power in the state in 2011 and severed ties with the Congress the following year, the situation changed. Many elected representatives of the Congress and the Left joined Trinamul, which grabbed the SMP from the CPM. Trinamul snatched all the four panchayat samitis and most of the 22 panchayats.

After delimitation in 2014, the number of seats has gone up. "In 2009, there were 329 seats in 22 panchayats. This time, elections would be held in 462 seats. The number of panchayats, however, is the same. In the four panchayat samitis, there were 64 seats in 2009, which has increased to 66. Also, in the SMP, elections will be held in nine seats, instead of seven," an administrative official said.

Darjeeling district Left Front convenor Jibesh Sarkar said they had finalised the candidates for the polls. "We are waiting for our allies like CPIML (Liberation) and the SUCI to choose their candidates. We will publish the list soon," he said.

Sarkar said the Left would announce the name of the prospective sabhadhipati of the SMP, only if Trinamul made such a move.

Trinamul minister Gautam Deb said the party had completed the selection of candidates and all would file nominations by September 8. "Trinamul is much ahead of other political parties in the SMP area. We are confident of securing most of the seats," he said.

Darjeeling district Congress president Sankar Malakar said once the elections were over, everyone would realise that the party was "one of the principal forces in the rural areas of Siliguri".

Biswapriya Roy Choudhury, the state general secretary of the BJP, on the other hand, claimed that his party would win maximum number seats.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BIRESWAR BANERJEE