Raiganj, July 12: The CPI has blamed Left Front ally CPM for its defeat in the recently-concluded civic elections here.

CPI lost its sole seat in the 26-seat municipality after the CPM fielded a candidate in ward 18, which has traditionally been held by the CPI. This caused a division in the Left votes, thus leading to the victory of the Congress contender.

The party?s North Dinajpur district secretary Samar Bhowmik said here today that he was going to send a written complaint, relating the incident, to Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

The elections to the Raiganj municipality was held last Sunday and the results, which were declared yesterday, showed an overwhelming win for the Congress. While the CPM?s count came down to four from nine, last time, the CPI drew a blank having lost ward 18.

CPI minister from the district Srikumar Mukherjee said the incident was unfortunate. ?We will discuss the future course of action with our party workers,? he said.

According to sources in the CPI, the district Left Front committee met and decided that like in 2001, the CPI would contest from ward 18 since their candidate had won with a huge margin last time.

Likewise, the party had decided on Suman Das and began campaigning. The CPM, however, filed nominations in the name of Gautam Dasgupta and stuck to their decision despite protests lodged by the CPI.

The results showed that the combined votes of the Left parties is 122 more than the winning margin of 159. Party sources claimed that this was the first time in the 55-year history of the municipality that the ward has been wrested from the Left. Ironically, the winner, Milon Chowdhury, had won the seat last time on a CPI ticket. He had defected to the Congress in 2003, thus tilting the balance in favour of the Congress.

The CPM local committee secretary, Nilkamal Saha, said there was no discussion on the ward before the elections and that is why the party had fielded its own candidate.