Gautam Deb releases report card, road map - Claim: Rs 664 crore pumped into constituency

Deb with his seat’s report card-cum-manifesto on Saturday.: Passang Yolmo

TT   |   Siliguri   |  04.04.21 : Bengal tourism minister Gautam Deb, the Trinamul MLA and candidate from the Dabgram-Fulbari Assembly seat, released a report card and manifesto of his constituency on Saturday.

While the report card spoke of the development work executed during the past 10 years by various state government departments in his constituency, the manifesto had an array of promises.

The report card said that ever since the Mamata Banerjee government came to power in 2011, around Rs 664 crore had been spent on his constituency for various projects.

The Dabgram-Fulbari seat in Jalpaiguri district has 14 wards of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and four adjoining panchayats.

“A number of projects, for which Rs 664 crore was spent, have come up in Dabgram-Fulbari during the past 10 years. We also plan to develop this as a ‘model Assembly constituency’ and form a new civic body here for better services to people,” said Deb, considered Trinamul’s tallest leader in north Bengal.

“A part of the constituency has areas which officially bear a rural tag… however, over the years, urbanisation has been rapid and people from rural areas want proper civic services like those in the 14 municipal wards of Siliguri. That is why we are stressing the need for a new civic body and include most of these rural areas,” explained a Trinamul leader in Fulbari.

Deb in his report card said the north Bengal development department formed by Mamata back in 2011 with Deb as its first minister and the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority spent around Rs 343 crore to build roads, bridges, sewerage and other infrastructure.

The forest department spent over Rs 85 crore for Bengal Safari Park and the Siliguri Municipal Corporation spent around Rs 73 crore on various projects in the 14 wards, the report card said.

A big project that came up in Deb’s constituency is Uttarkanya, the branch secretariat of the state government.

A separate report card-cum-manifesto for the seat is another strategy for Trinamul to revive its support base here, said political observers. Though Deb had won two back-to-back elections from the seat, his party fell behind the BJP by around 86,000 votes in the Assembly segment in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“He is holding extensive campaigns for weeks now. Now it seems that he wants to reach out to his electorate with a report card so that they can have a clear idea about what the Trinamul government has done in his constituency and what it intends to do in future. Instead of lengthy speeches, this pamphlet is a better tool to tell voters these details,” said an observer.