Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the circuit house in Behrampore. (Asim Bhaskar)

Behrampore, July 5: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today asked the Murshidabad authorities to draw up a “reliable list” of below-poverty-line people during a tour of the district to review implementation of projects that might help rescue his poll-scarred government.

The new list should be prepared and BPL cards distributed as early as possible, the chief minister told officials. “I have instructed the district authorities to draw up a reliable list of eligible people and distribute the BPL cards as soon as possible. There are also many cases where genuine applicants have not got their ration cards. The administration has to check the papers immediately and issue the cards.”

Last week, Bhattacharjee had gone to Nadia and Hooghly, where the Left Front lost four of the five Lok Sabha seats.

In Murshidabad, it lost all three.

Following the poll debacle in May, the state CPM had decided to send the chief minister to the districts to review and speed up pending projects in a bid to improve the image of the government, now seen as indifferent to the poor.

In Behrampore, Bhattacharjee met the MLAs from the district in the absence of its three Congress MPs, who are in Delhi. Among the 17 MLAs who attended, three were from the Congress. The CPM Rajya Sabha MP from Murshidabad, Mainul Hasan, was also there.

At the meeting, the RSP MLAs proposed a Central Bengal Development Authority to look into the development needs of Murshidabad and parts of Nadia and Birbhum districts. “We feel development projects will gain pace if such a body is set up,” said Jane Alam, the MLA from Suti.

The Congress member from Lalgola, Abu Hena, supported the proposal.

The chief minister has promised to look into their demand.

While the meeting was in progress, Trinamul Congress supporters gathered outside the circuit house and started shouting “go back chief minister”. Police arrested about 100 people and later released them.

The Muslims’ disenchantment with the Left government was said to be one reason for the CPM’s successive poll debacles, from last year’s panchayat polls to last month’s civic elections.

Asked what special projects had been taken up for the minority community, the chief minister said: “We have opened district-level offices of the minority affairs department in Murshidabad and Malda. Block development officers have been asked to draw up development projects for the community. The district magistrates will review the progress of the projects every month.”

He also promised to electrify all Murshidabad villages by next year. Over 1,800 of them do not have power now. Around 70 per cent of the villages that now drink arsenic-laced water will have access to clean water by 2010, he added.