Islampur, May 22: Kanaia Lal Agarwal of the Congress became the chairman of the Islampur municipality after he had kept all councillors of his party at secret locations for three weeks to abort alleged attempts by Trinamul minister Abdul Karim Chowdhury to grab the civic body.

Agarwal adopted the same tactics like Asok Bhattacharya who left Siliguri along with other 22 councillors of the Left Front on the day Mamata Banerjee landed in town on May 4. Asok, who later became the chairman of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation defeating Nantu Paul, had feared that some Left councillors might be cajoled into supporting Trinamul.

"In a similar manner like Asok Bhattacharya, who took away the left councillors to Darjeeling and the Dooars as Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee reached Siliguri, Agarwal kept all Congress councillors in a discreet manner and kept them at undisclosed locations," a Congress leader said in Islampur today. "Most of them were away from Islampur as minister for libraries and mass education extension Chowdhury, who is also the MLA of Islampur, had pulled all stops to get the backing of at least six Congress councillors."

In the 17-ward Islampur municipality, Congress secured 10 seats, one above of the magic figure of nine. Trinamul and the BJP won three seats each and another ward went to an Independent.

Today, Agarwal won nine votes and became the chairman, defeating Sanghamitra Deb Pal Chowdhury of Trinamul.

"All three BJP councillors and the Independent abstained from voting. A Congress councillor, who presided over the first meeting of the board, did not vote. The remaining Congress and Trinamul councillors voted through secret ballots.

As the ballots were counted, it was found that Congress secured nine votes, while Trinamul got only three votes. As four councillors abstained from voting, the majority mark came down to seven," said an official of the civic body.

After taking his oath, Agarwal said: "Since April 28, when the election results were announced, Trinamul leaders here had been trying to woo Congress councillors. Trinamul had engaged some middlemen who made various offers to our councillors. None of them, however, left the Congress. All of us were together as a result of which we could retain the civic board."

He added: "We expect the local minister to extend all possible co-operation to us for development of Islampur. Trinamul must accept defeat in Islampur and refrain from trying to bring in councillors from other parties."

The Congress councillors, sources said, had left Islampur just after the results had been announced. "They returned to Islampur only a couple of days back and were kept under observation to stop Trinamul from wooing them. Most of the Congress councillors had stayed in Delhi and later camped in Raiganj," said a source.

Agarwal, however, said the Congress councillors had stayed away from Islampur for other reasons.

"It is true that offers flowed in from Trinamul. But we did not leave Islampur out of the apprehension that if our councillors stayed here, Trinamul might try to poach them. We had gone out either on a personal trip or for business purposes," the chairman said.

Minister Chowdhury, when asked about the Congress' strategy which worked in Islampur, said he had made open offers to all councillors.

"We had urged all councillors to support Trinamul so that our party could form the board and expedite the process of development in Islampur. It is not that we had resorted to unethical means. We had issued the appeal in the interest of development," Chowdhury said.

"We will surely co-operate with the civic board as we don't believe in indulging in politics over development," he added.