CPI-M decides to contest civic body polls in Hills

SNS

| Siliguri | 09 November, 2016

: The CPI-M will contest the forthcoming civic body elections in the Darjeeling Hills. It may be noted that the party leaders had earlier said it was wrong on the part of the party not to field the candidates in the three Hill Assembly constituencies in the Assembly elections. “CPI-M will contest the civic body polls in the Hills. We have already started organising small meetings, and campaigns. At this moment we are focusing to strengthen the party base in the Hills,” said the party’s Darjeeling district secretary Jibesh Sarkar.

The party did not field any candidate in the Hills during the Assembly polls, this year. “During the Assembly polls CPI-M candidates did not contest the Assembly polls as our party base was being strengthened in the Hills and we wanted that the anti-Trinamul Congress votes should not be split.But it was a mistake and this time we do not want to repeat the same,” said a party leader. The four civic bodies in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik are run by Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) and their terms will end this month. Notably, the panchayat elections were held in the Hills in May 2000 and after that no rural polls were held in Darjeeling Hills as the then Gorkha National Liberation Front chief Subash Ghisingh and chief of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council prevented the Leftled state government from conducting rural polls in 2005.

Late Ghisingh had then then raised objections to holding the panchayat elections, alleging that it was diluting the powers of the erstwhile Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. “We are in favour of the two-tier panchayat system in the Darjeeling Hills. At the same time we want the highest form of regional autonomy against the division of the Gorkha community,” Sarkar added.