Ruby Noor (top) and Mausam

Malda, Oct. 28: The Malda Congress has requested Mamata Banerjee not to field any candidate for the Sujapur byelections to be held by the end of this year to ensure that votes for Mausam Noor do not get split.

The Sujapur Assembly seat, a traditional Congress stronghold, was vacated by Ruby Noor’s death on July 10 this year. Mausam is the youngest of her three daughters.

Ever since, the late A.B.A Ghani Khan Chowdhury won the seat in 1972, Sujapur has belonged to the Congress. Ruby Noor, who is also Ghani Khan’s sister, has won from this seat for three consecutive terms starting 1991.

Mausam has already started her campaign, going around the constituency in a vehicle with cut-outs of her popular uncle. The CPM, too, is not sitting quietly and having made inroads into the area by bagging the Kaliachak I panchayat samiti capitalising on the infighting in the Congress, it is now pinning its hope on an upset.

According to the sitting MP from Malda, Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, another sibling of Ghani Khan, their family was very close to the Trinamul Congress chief. “I went to visit Mamata in Calcutta and requested her not to field any candidate against Mausam. It is now up to her and her party to decide,” the MP said.

Referring to the Kaliachak I panchayat samiti seat, Khan Chowdhury said the results of the rural elections would have no effect on the Assembly polls.

“Mausam is touring Sujapur almost every day and she is drawing large crowds,” he said.

Mamata, on the other hand, has called her party’s district leadership to Calcutta. Babla Sarkar, the Trinamul district president, left for Calcutta yesterday. Chances are that Mamata could well give in to the Congress demand, as Trinamul does not have a strong presence in Sujapur.

The CPM has started campaigning by holding a convention of the local silk producers’ and silk loom weavers’ association.

More than 80 per cent of people in Sujapur are associated with the silk industry.

State environment minister Sailen Sarkar claimed that more than 62 per cent of the electorate had voted the CPM to the panchayat samiti in the area.

“The entire state is looking forward to the byelections, the date of which will be announced soon. The Left Front will see to it that Sujapur and its silk growers and weavers prosper,” Sarkar said.

The minister said once the elections were announced, the party would finalise its candidate. In all probability, Ketabuddin Sheikh, who won the Kaliachak I panchayat samiti, will be fielded in Sujapur.