Opposition councillors demonstrate outside Ghosh’s room. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, March 20: At a time when the Congress and the Trinamul Congress are preparing to fight the coming Assembly elections on their own, the two parties and the BJP have formed an alliance at the municipality level to snatch the Englishbazar civic board from the CPM.

All the 14 Opposition councillors ? eight from the Trinamul, five from the Congress and one from the BJP ? demonstrated in front of the office of board chairman Nihar Ghosh today, demanding his resignation.

Biswanath Guha of the Congress and Babla Sarkar of the Trinamul Congress ? the duo who had been accused of cross voting that resulted in Ghosh assuming office ? led the protest. Though a high court verdict delivered on March 10 had given the Opposition permission to table a no-confidence motion, the Left Front has been given 15 days to appeal before a division bench.

?The court has given its verdict against the Left Front. Ghosh has no right to retain the chair. We are demanding his resignation because he is running a minority board. Besides, no meeting of the board of councillors has been held in the last three months,? said Sarkar.

Guha said the Opposition would convene a meeting on March 27. ?But they have to stop all work before that. Otherwise we will continue with our agitation,? Guha warned.

Reacting to the charges, the chairman said he was not denying that he was running a minority board. ?But the Opposition should also establish that they are the majority,? he said. ?We could not convene the meeting of the board of councillors since a case was pending in court. But we had regular chairman-in-council meetings,? Ghosh said.

According to the chairman, the earlier Trinamul-Congress-BJP board had indulged in corrupt practices. Though there were several high-rises in town, none of them helped generate funds for the municipality. ?But we have collected Rs 23 lakh in a month for services rendered by the municipality,? Ghosh said.