Cooch Behar, Oct. 4: Dinhata MLA and municipal chairman Udayan Guha today claimed that the Trinamul Congress had gained the control of the civic body with the defection of most of the Left Front councillors to the ruling party.

Guha had resigned as the Cooch Behar district secretary of the Bloc and the party's state secretariat member in September because of his discontentment with the leadership. He joined Trinamul on October 1.

Today, he reached here by train from Calcutta, the first visit to the district, after the switch to Trinamul. More than thousand Trinamul supporters had gathered at New Cooch Behar station to welcome the Dinahata MLA.

Guha said nine of the 10 Bloc councillors as well as one from the CPM at Dinhata municipality had joined Trinamul. "There will be no change in the posts of the chairman and vice-chairman at the Dinhata municipality. Trinamul has 13 councillors and there is no question of any no-confidence motion being moved against us. We will work closely for the development of Dinhata town," said Guha, who is also the chairman of the civic body.

In the elections to the 16-member civic body in April this year, Bloc had won 10 wards, while three seats each went to Left and Trinamul. Now Trinamul's strength is 13 and the Left's is three.

Chandan Ghosh, the lone Bloc councillor who did not switch to Trinamul, said he would not desert the party founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

With the Dinhata municipality falling to Trinamul, all six civic bodies in the district are with the ruling party now. Of the 20 civic bodies in the plains of north Bengal, only four, Siliguri, Raiganj, Kaliaganj and Islampur, remain with the Opposition parties.