If Siliguri people were to elect their mayor in the forthcoming Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) elections simply on the basis of someone’s profile, CPI-M strongman Asok Bhattacharya would surely take the cake, thanks to his 10th book titled ‘Firay Dekha Tin Dashak’ (A look back at the past three decades).

As he released the book in Siliguri recently, Mr Bhattacharya talked of how he was encouraged to introduce several municipal Acts, how he amended them and framed rules after going through a book written by Sir Surendranath Banerjee, who had made the Calcutta Municipal Corporation more democratic, and studying some plans, programmes and notes of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, who was also once the mayor of Calcutta.

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Mr Bhattacharya has said that the concept of Mayor in Council, Ward Committee, ‘Decentralization of Democratic Power instead of Bureaucracy’, were all introduced during his tenure when he was the minister for Urban Development and Municipal Affairs. The former Siliguri MLA also claimed participation of the poor people in ward committees for urban development and has said that their opinions were a unique feature of the Ward Committee, which had remained in control of the so called upper-class people in urban society.

Illustrating the last three decades, Mr Bhattacharya has penned his experiences as the Minister for Urban Development and Municipal Affairs for 10 years under the leadership of Jyoti Basu and the next 10 years under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. As a minister, Mr Bhattacharya was also the chairman of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA) and Vice Chairman of the Kolkata Metropolitan Planning Committee (KMPC) for 20 years.

He has written of how he brought in development in Kolkata as well as Siliguri and other small and medium towns in West Bengal during his tenure. Though Trinamool Congress leaders like the late Subrata Mukherjee, Sovon Chattopadhyay and Firhad Hakim served Kolkata as the mayor, Mr Bhattacharya claimed: “Whatever developments like flyover, drinking water, drainage system, solid waste management in Kolkata as well as in Siliguri and other towns across the state people are witnessing, all came during my tenure.”

As the then chairman of the SJDA, Mr Bhattacharya also said he chalked out plans and brought in development plans for Siliguri, keeping in mind the situation in 2025. Just ahead of the SMC polls now, which will be held on 12 February, Mr Bhattacharya did not hesitate to showcase his long experience as the chairman of the Siliguri Municipality and then 20 years as the minister and then mayor of Siliguri for five years and then again the Siliguri MLA and around 11 months as the chairman of the Board of Administrators for the SMC.

In his book, Mr Bhattacharya has further mentioned his experiences as the vice chairman of the All India Council of Mayors and the experiences he gained with association with mayors in South Asia and his visit to different countries like China, Switzerland, Vietnam and Germany. Mr Bhattacharya claimed that the Climate Change Action Plan based on Siliguri was prepared during his tenure as the mayor and that he had shared his experiences during his visit to foreign countries as the mayor and even his ‘bitter’ experiences in running the corporation due to alleged non-cooperation and resistance from the state government.

Mr Bhattacharya admitted that as the Cabinet minister, he got an opportunity to visit many places abroad and met top officials, including prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee, IK Gujral, Devi Gouda and even Manmohan Singh. “But I did not meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said, adding, “He had good relationship with the then Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and worked with him for the sake of development as Pranab Mukherjee was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.”

He has also not forgotten to write about his good memories with celebrities like film maker Satyajit Ray, and other personalities. Very interestingly, Mr Bhattacharya has dedicated the book to his wife Ratna Bhattacharya, who passed away recently. The preface of his book is written by former chief secretary of the West Bengal government, Ashok Mohan Chakraborty, who was also the former principal secretary of the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department.