Desperate CPM ‘bribes’ voters

Statesman News Service
MIDNAPORE, Feb. 5: Anti CPI-M forces' winning spree continues in the ongoing elections to higher secondary school managing committees in Midnapore East as a direct fall out to police-cadre carnage in Nandigram in March and later armed recapture of Nandigram in November last year.

The BUPC-supported candidates wrested the managing committee of Gokulnagar Gobinda Jew Siksha Niketan in Nandigram from the CPI-M after 15 years by capturing all the six seats under guardians quota. Around 1,300 voters cast their votes in the election which was held on 3 January.

In Panskura, the BB HS school managing committee was also wrested by the Opposition though the CPI-M-affiliated ABTA had a strong base in the school over the years.

The Majajot candidates also won all the six seats at Gokulnagar Trilochanm Vidyapith in Moyna block in the district by an overwhelming margin against the CPI-M. The results were similar in the block in four other school managing committees where the Marxists were mauled. The elections were held on 27 January.

Aware that the winds have been blowing against them, the CPI-M leaders of the block have made a unique move as a last effort to bag the Kumorchowk Janakalyan Siksha Niketan managing committee in Moyna, which will go to polls on 10 February.

The Marxist cadres went to Pramanikpara and Ranapara villages last week to woo the voters to cast in favour of their candidates by getting them to promise by touching the Bhagawad Gita. They also offered money to some of them, villagers alleged.

But when the inmates, particularly the womenfolk, resisted and chased them, they fled the area. Mr Subrata Malakar, the Mahajot leader, said the CPI-M who had been at the helm of affairs of the school managing committee over the past decades are now desperate to cling to power for which they are not hesitant to indulge in this type of unfair means, he added.

However, the CPI-M MLA from Moyna, Mr Muziber Rahaman, who belongs to these areas refuted the allegations, saying those were nothing but anti-campaign against them by the Mahajot.

On the other hand, he has information that the Mahajot were offering money to the voters, he alleged.