Congress and Bloc members with their respective flags at a joint campaign. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, May 5: A strange political drama has been unfolding in a remote corner of the district, unknown to the powers that be in Alimuddin Street and Bidhan Bhavan.

The Forward Bloc has chosen the Congress, and not the CPM or some other Left Front constituent, as its ally for the panchayat elections in three blocks — Cooch Behar I and Dinhata I and II. And both parties are openly advertising their electoral pact. The supporters are jointly campaigning for the polls at both the gram panchayat and the panchayat samiti levels.

The development may surprise both the CPM headquarters at Alimuddin Street and the Congress’s at Bidhan Bhavan in Calcutta.

“The CPM had arrived at an electoral alliance with the Bloc at the state level, but here they are fielding candidates against ours. This can’t be tolerated by our grassroots workers and that is why we have made a pact with the Congress,” said Biswanath De Amin, a district committee member of the Bloc.

De Amin added that the CPM had always acted in a high-handed manner and needed to be taught a lesson. “How long can we tolerate such action from a party that is supposed to be our ally?” he asked.

The CPM’s district secretariat member, Benubadal Chakrabarty, said the Bloc had also made an electoral alliance with the Trinamul Congress and the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party. “Let them do what they please, we are not afraid of them,” Chakrabarty said.

The Congress MLA from Sitai, Fazle Haq, said villagers are fed up with the strong-arm tactics of the CPM supporters. “Everyone is terrorised by the CPM goons. They do not even spare the Front partners at the village level and that is why the Bloc has made electoral pacts with us in some areas.”

According to CPM insiders, besides the Congress and the Bloc, other parties, too, have made grand alliances against the ruling party. They said that of the 1,668 gram panchayat seats in the district, there was anti-CPM seat adjustment by these alliances in 488 of them.

CPM district secretary Chandi Pal, however, said there was perfect understanding among Front partners except for a few areas.