Chanchol(Malda), April 28: It was a bumpy ride for chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Though the district administration left no stone unturned to repair the road on the eve of his panchayat rally, the road remains dotted with potholes.

The 75-km-long Malda-Chanchol Road has been in a sorry state over the last one year. But authorities woke up to that reality only when the chief minister came to Chanchol to address a rally for the May 11 panchayat poll.

He had a feel of the road as his car bounced down to what is now a subdivisional headquarters.

“For the last five days, they repaired the road as the chief minister was coming here. But they made a bad job of it as the road is still full of potholes,” Manab Mukherjee, a local school teacher, said.

A year earlier, Chanchol had been declared a subdivision but till date no subdivisional hospital has come up. Neither has any subdivisional police officer been posted here.

“We were told that that government offices would come up in Samsi. But nothing of that sort happened,” said the secretary of the Samsi Nagarik Committee Manab Bannerjee. He said the residents had also demanded also a treasury in the area.

“Both demands fell on deaf ears. The people of this area now have to rush to Malda for their official works,” Bannerjee added.

The road repair at the time of the chief minister’s visit has irked the RSP. District secretary of the RSP Gautam Gupta said: “The road was repaired just before the chief minister’s visit. Many workers have worked sleepless nights to prepare the road. What will we now answer to the villagers? The Malda-Chanchol road has been repaired but the Ratua-Bhaluka Road is full of potholes. Nothing has been done about that.”