Cooch Behar, March 10: A day after the Forward Bloc’s district chairman, Bimal Bose, declared that he would campaign for renegade candidate Amar Roy Pradhan, party heavyweight Kamal Guha accused the former of making false accusations against him.

The agriculture minister said at the party office here today that Bose’s accusations, that he had unilaterally chosen Hiten Burman as the candidate for the Lok Sabha seat, replacing Pradhan, was not true.

“I have never gone against the party norms and Burman’s candidature was discussed threadbare at the state committee,” Guha said. He said Bose’s stand that the party had “ignored” him was also not true.

“Bose is still a member of the party,” Guha said.

The minister, however, was quiet on whether or not the party would take action against Bose for siding with Pradhan. “I am busy with the election. We have to ensure that Hiten Burman wins with a thumping majority. I have no time to think about Bose at the moment,” Guha said.

Bose had declared his intention of throwing his weight behind Pradhan, who was denied a ticket after winning the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat eight times in a row. Pradhan is contesting the seat as a candidate of the Marxist Forward Bloc.

Asked what kind of influence Bose’s campaign in favour of Pradhan would have on the poll prospects for his party, Guha said it was too insignificant to discuss. “In the last Assembly elections, Bimal Bose did not do much at all and despite that, our party won from all the seats in the district. He did not play any role in returning five of our MLAs to the legislature,” the veteran leader said.

The minister also brushed aside Bose’s remark yesterday that Guha has never been a sympathiser of the Left Front. “Even when I was outside the Left Front, no one could say that I was anti-Left,” he remarked.

The Kamal-Bimal exchange has fanned the fires of electoral politics in the district. The leaders of the district CPM too are not very comfortable with the developments.

Chandi Pal, the CPM district secretary, said his party was throwing all its weight behind the Left Front-nominated Hiten Burman.