Siliguri, Sept. 3: The Darjeeling district CPM has demanded that the interim authority in the hills should be an elected body and not formed by nominated members.

Asok Bhattacharya, the CPM municipal and urban development minister, today told reporters that once the nitty gritty of the interim arrangement was finalised, it could be formed by November through election.

“After the central government’s proposal on the interim arrangement, the state government also cleared its stand. But at the same time, we also think that the set-up should be formed through election. It should not be a nominated body,” Bhattacharya said this afternoon.

On the formation of the proposed set-up, he said: “It should be formed in a democratic manner and should not deprive the residents of the hills from participating in an election. I have spoken to the district administration in this regard, and it is understood that once the set-up is declared, the administration will be ready to hold an election in the next two months.”

Bhattacharya said he wished success for the upcoming talks on Tuesday, adding such an initiative could be fruitful only if all the political parties from the region were involved. He also said the proposal had been sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, after Saman Pathak, the CPM Rajya Sabha member, met him last month.

“Any such process can be fulfilled, when the central government involves all the political parties of the region. We have already appealed to the Prime Minister about this through our Rajya Sabha MP.”

He also said the Morcha leaders, keeping in mind the talks, should co-operate with police and the CID which is trying to find out the whereabouts of Nickole Tamang. Nickole, a central committee leader of the Morcha and a prime accused in the Madan Tamang murder case, fled from CID custody on August 22.