A damaged telephone set in the conservancy department. (Surajit Roy)

Malda, Feb. 25: A drunken Congress councillor today heckled employees of the Englishbazar Municipality and stopped all work in the conservancy department, but still managed to flee before police arrived.

Chairman and party-colleague Narendranath Tiwari, taken aback at this unruly behaviour, had called up the police. Later, Tiwari claimed that he had filed an FIR against Saha with the Englishbazar police station.

The Citu-affiliated workers’ union of the municipality observed a ceasework to protest against the councillor’s behaviour.

Union leader Prasanta Thakur said workers of the conservancy department were cleaning a hydrant in Ward IV in the morning when a drunken Saha appeared at the spot.

Thakur alleged that Saha started abusing the employees and pushed them around. From there, he came straight to the public works section of the municipality, this time followed by his supporters. He flung a telephone set to the ground, broke the glass top of a table and started beating up employees.

Soon workers from other department came to rescue their colleagues. Thakur said the union would start an indefinite strike if the councillor was not arrested immediately.

Saha, however, has denied the allegations. “The conservancy staff had been cleaning a hydrant in my ward without informing me. The hydrant they had chosen needed no cleaning. I had only protested against that. Neither did I beat up anyone nor ransack the municipality office,” he said.

A zonal committee member of the CPM, Jayanta Das, alleged that Rs 1 lakh had been sanctioned for cleaning the hydrants in Saha’s ward. “He got angry when the contractor engaged in the job refused to give him his cut,” said Das.

Embarrassed over the behaviour of his party colleague, the chairman of the municipality said: “What Saha did this morning was unbecoming of a councillor. I have personally lodged a written complaint against him with the local police. Legal steps will be taken against him.”

District police chief Satyajit Banerjee, however, told The Telegraph that the police had not received any written complaint against the erring councillor. “Once we get that, we shall arrest him,” he said.