Priya: Aiming at anti-Left alliance

Raiganj, Jan. 29: Union minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi has expressed ?firm belief? in a grand alliance of anti-Left parties ? sans BJP ? for the coming Assembly elections.

Das Munshi today told newspersons at the circuit house in Karnajhora : ?There is a strong anti-Left wave in the state. The forces against the Left Front are not unified yet, but an alliance is going to take a definite shape soon.? He added that people of Bengal would not accept a communal party like the BJP.

?Our party will not support the BJP on ideological grounds. Those who want to ensure that there is no division of the anti-Left votes must shun the BJP,? he said.

When asked about alliances between the Congress and the BJP in civic bodies and the zilla parishad in Malda, the Congress leader said: ?One must not equate these with the Assembly elections. If our party wants, I shall personally talk to Mamata Banerjee to convince her.?

Das Munshi alleged that even though the Election Commission was taking steps to ensure free and fair polls, officials loyal to the ruling CPM were thwarting its efforts.

Citing examples, Das Munshi said hundreds of people had assembled at the block development office of Chakulia on January 24 to enrol their names on the voters? list, but there was no one in the office. The people waited for hours and had to leave ultimately.

The Union minister said his party had submitted a list of several thousand fake voters in Chakulia, Karandighi and Itahar blocks to observers sent by the Election Commission. But the administration did not take the observers to those places on the ground that the roads were too bad.

He also alleged that residents of Karandighi were told that the observer would visit them at 1 pm on the day Id was observed. But the observer was taken there at 4 pm.

?I shall write to the Election Commission, providing details of all these politically-motivated officials,? he said.