In its first meeting after being reinstated, the Board of Administrators for the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation on Friday decided to appoint ward co-ordinators for all the wards under it. While the majority of the former councillors made their way back, some new faces are set to be inducted as well.
For Salt Lake, changes are being made for wards 31, 34 and 41, the former councillors of which — Sabyasachi Dutta, Devasish Jana and Anindya Chattopadhyay respectively — have switched to BJP.
Board of Administrators member Debraj Chakraborty refused to read much into it. “There is no rule that ward co-ordinators have to be former councillors. The board has the authority to appoint anyone it deems fit,” he said, adding that political affiliation to Trinamul Congress was not a criterion. “Had that been the case, Md Mohasin Ahmed of CPM and Gita Sardar of Congress would not have been re-appointed as co-ordinators of wards 13 and 14 respectively,” he said.
The new names decided on at the meeting are Supriyo Chakraborty for Ward 31, Ranjan Poddar for Ward 34 and Ratna Bhaumik for Ward 41. All three are close to the newly re-elected Bidhannagar MLA Sujit Bose.
“I have been on the ward committee for earlier councillors Devasish Jana, Sathi Banerjee and Sabyasachi Dutta. I am also the secretary of the AE (Part 1) residents’ body and was instrumental in introducing theme puja to our block 15 years ago, a move that has put our block on the Durga puja map of Salt Lake,” said Chakraborty, who runs the Season’s furnishing store at Kwality More.
Poddar was Bose’s confidential assistant during his last term as MLA. A resident of Karunamoyee A Block, he has already started visiting the office of Ward 34 daily, located next to Big Bazaar.
Bhaumik is now a resident of EC Block but knows the ward well, having spent 24 years there. “My mother-in-law still lives in AC Block,” says the general secretary of the state Trinamul Mahila Congress unit. She is sitting in the ward office at BD Market on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.
Though they have not received the appointment letter yet, the co-ordinators have started working to contain Covid. “On Tuesday, we sanitised BD and AC markets as well as all the community halls in my ward,” said Bhaumik.
Additional reporting by Brinda sarkar