Burdwan, Nov. 27: CPM leaders in former red citadel Burdwan have accused the Mamata Banerjee government of “political bias” after none from the party found a place in the reconstituted governing boards of the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority and the Burdwan Development Authority.

When the new boards were formed in September, Rathin Roy, the mayor of the CPM-run Durgapur Municipal Corporation, Ainul Haque, the chairperson of the party-run Burdwan municipality, and Uday Sarkar, the sabhadhipati of the CPM-controlled Burdwan zilla parishad, were left out.

According to convention, local MLAs, civic body chiefs and the sabhadhipati get nominated to such governing bodies by virtue of their posts.

Amal Haldar, the district CPM secretary, said: “There is not a single representative from the Opposition on the new governing boards. This reeks of political bias. Mamata Banerjee had said after coming to power that she would involve the Opposition in development work and give more importance to their views. But in reality, nothing like that has happened.”

Haldar said that when the Left was running the Asansol-Durgapur Development Authority (ADDA), Opposition leaders were on the board. “There was no Opposition member on the Burdwan Development Authority (BDA) board during our time because the local MLAs, zilla parishad chief and municipality chairperson were all from the Left,” he added.

The present ADDA board has only three political personalities — the Trinamul MLAs of Asansol South, Durgapur East and West. The apolitical representatives include bureaucrats, heads of unions and chief executive officers of public sector units such as Durgapur Steel Plant, Durgapur Projects Limited and Eastern Coalfields Limited.

Asansol mayor Tapas Banerjee, who is also the Trinamul Congress MLA from Asansol South, was nominated the chairperson of the board after the CPM’s Bangsagopal Chowdhury, who had held the post for nearly two decades, stepped down following the Left’s rout in the Assembly elections.

Durgapur mayor Roy said the board members should have been chosen in a “more democratic manner”. “The area under the ADDA’s jurisdiction has two CPM MLAs and a Forward Bloc legislator, but none found a place on the board,” he said.

ADDA chairperson Banerjee said: “We don’t want to learn democracy from the CPM. When I was the Congress MLA from Asansol in the late nineties, I was not nominated to the board. Apurba Mukherjee, the Trinamul MLA from Durgapur between 2001 and 2006, also did not find a place in the board.”

The CPM leaders said the new BDA board included the Trinamul legislators of Kalna, about 60km from Burdwan town, Bhatar, 30km away, Memari, 30km away and Jamalpur, 35km away. “They were included but not me and the CPM MLA from Burdwan North,” Burdwan civic body chairman Haque said.

Rabiranjan Chatterjee, the minister of technical education and BDA chairperson, said he did “not have any hand in the reconstitution of the governing board”.