Cooch Behar, Aug, 21: A day into its existence, the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party has already sparked controversy.

The Bangshibadan Barman faction of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association had yesterday announced the formation of the party as a platform to politically fight for a separate state of Cooch Behar. The association leaders minus Bangshibadan, who is in jail, were named as office bearers in the new party. They had vowed to contest the next Assembly polls and oust the Left Front from the district.

Today, the rival faction of the association led by Jyotish Sarkar threatened to move court over the name of the party and criticised the office bearers’ decision to fight elections.

“We had expelled Bangshibadan Barman and his followers from our association, and now they have formed a party. We will move court if they insist on having ‘Greater’ as part of their name,” said Sariful Islam, the secretary of the Jyotish faction.

“The main contention of our association was that the Assembly polls, imposed on the people of Cooch Behar ever since the state merged with the Union of India, is absolutely illegal,” Sariful said. By forming the political party, he added, the Bangshibadan camp had gone against the grain of this objective.

The rift within the association goes back quite a long way. Immediately after the incident of September 20, 2005, when the association shot into prominence after five persons, including three policemen, were killed during a demonstration, the division was not evident. Bangshibadan was still the leader of the movement for a separate state, with Jyotish as the president.

A few months later, though, Jyotish and Bangshibadan parted ways and since then both the factions have laid claims to being the legitimate outfit. But Bangshibadan, who is now in jail on charges of causing the death of the policemen and inciting violence, enjoys the larger following.

The president of the new party, Asutosh Barman, remains firm in his conviction that the new party would join electoral politics. He said today that they would approach the Election Commission of India in “a day or two”.

“The Jyotish faction has been created by the CPM to undermine our movement. We are not concerned about their posturing,” Asutosh said when told about the court threat.

The announcement of the party has created a buzz in the district’s political circles.

“We will not tolerate those who want to divide the state and the district. Whether they are a political party or an apolitical forum, we will continue to resist them,” said Forward Bloc MLA Akshay Thakur.

The Congress has looked at the development as a CPM gimmick. “These are games the CPM plays before each election. First it was the association before the Assembly polls, now the party before the panchayat polls,” said district president of the Congress Shyamal Choudhury.