Das Munshi at a rally in Gurung Bustee, Siliguri. A Telegraph picture

Champasari, Sept. 30: No lashing out at CPM ministers. Only local issues and an appeal to resist the imposition of VAT (Value Added Tax).

That was how Union water resources minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi charmed the crowd at the market complex here, around 6 km from Siliguri, during his election campaign this afternoon.

Das Munshi, unlike other anti-Left bigwigs who had come to campaign for the Siliguri Municipal Corporation poll, chose to take up issues close to the people?s heart.

?Bidhan Chandra Roy (former Congress chief minister) had a masterplan for Calcutta, a growing city, way back in the fifties. But for the last 27 years (the span of Left Front rule), the government could not come out with a similar plan for Siliguri, a place choking with people of other backward districts of north Bengal,? said Das Munshi.

The Congress MP from Raiganj had flown in from Delhi this morning for a whirlwind eight-meeting campaign and will leave for Maharashtra tomorrow. His wife, Deepa, is also busy campaigning in the town.

?In the last 27 years, 31,615 children died of diarrhoea in this state because the government failed to provide pure drinking water to the people. How long will the government take to provide basic amenities to its tax-payers? The CPM government, which claims to be working for the labour class, is constructing a satellite township by uprooting tea bushes in Chandmoni. Never in a civilised country have I seen greenery being destroyed, leaving hundreds of tea garden workers to starve to death,? he told the residents of Ward No. 46.

?The CPM ministers keep on mentioning Mahananda Action Plan wherever they go. But have you ever heard of any concrete step taken by them to materialise the project. Where is the money coming from?? Das Munshi said.

He alleged that the government is suppressing anti-Left sentiments in the name of insurgency. ?They will put any Gorkha or Rajbanshi in jail, labelling them Maoists or KLO rebels,? he said. They should, instead, set up a permanent office of the director-general of police here, he added.

Seeking people?s support in opposing the imposition of VAT, Das Munshi said: ?We, in Raiganj, are going to build up a strong resistance against VAT. If the people of Siliguri join us, we will fight for it here as well.?

The former Congress chief whip of the Lok Sabha packed up to head for Ward No 11 around 5 pm.