Adhir bastion crumbles, oppn routed from all ZPs

BEHRAMPORE: The Congress-controlled Murshidabad Zilla Parishad, the last opposition-run apex body in the state's three-tier panchayat system, switched to Trinamool on Friday , giving Mamata Banerjee's party an absolute sway over all the 18 zilla parishads in Bengal.Coming on the heels of the political changeover in municipalities across Murshidabad (including Behrampore), the development comes four days ahead of chief minister Mamata Banerjee's scheduled administrative meeting in the district.
Trinamool, that had only one member in the 70-member zilla parishad (now it has come down to 68), poached as many as 28 members from the Congress and another 14 from the Left Front to garner a majority in the no-trust vote against outgoing sabhadhipati and Adhir Chowdhury-loyalist Shiladitya Halder.The vote was conducted in the presence of district magistrate Y Ratnakar Rao. Trinamool won the no-trust vote 43-0 as the remaining 12 Congress members and 11 Left Front members chose to stay away. “I am sending the results to the divisional commissioner who will now announce the date of election of the new sabhadhipati,“ Rao said.
The outgoing sabhadhipati and the other members didn't recognise the no-trust vote on the ground that the matter was still pending with the high court. Halder had questioned the divisional commissioner's decision to hold the no-trust vote on Sep tember 23 within seven days after he received the no-trust notice on September 14. “The high court has called for an explanation from the divisional commissioner that it may take up for hearing on September 26,“ Halder said.
The court, however, hadn't stayed the no-trust vote.
Winds of change started blowing in Murshidabad and Malda soon after Suvendu Adhikari took charge of these districts. He reached the district a day before the notrust vote that routed the Congress from the zilla parishad. And it was under Adhikari's stewardship that the party gained a majority in a host of municipalities and the Murshidabad zilla parishad. Of the seven municipalities in the district, Congress is left with only one -the Murshidabad Municipality, while the Kandi Municipality is in a flux.
But as it happens in poli tics, the development has created two power centres in Murshidabad -Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee and minister Suvendu Adhikari.It came to surface from the developments in the Behrampore Municipality a few days ago. Congress councillor Subrata Moitra took the Trinamool flag from Adhikari, while Behrampore Municipality chairman Nilratan Adhya and 17 other councillors joined Trinamool in Kolkata in presence of Abhishek. What came as a surprise within the Trinamool camp in Murshidabad, Adhya and his men offered the municipality vice-chairman's post to Jayanta Pramanik, leaving out Moitra. Feeling let down, the councillor said: “I was the first to raise voice against the irregularities of the chairman when the board was with Congress. I won't stop to flag my dissent even after both of us have joined Trinamool.“