The Trinamul Congress in South Dinajpur has started groundwork for the municipality elections in the district that are due for long now. The Balurghat town TMC, along with district leaders, organised an indoor meeting at Natyatirtha with booth level workers today.

All district leaders and leaders of Balurghat town were present in the meeting, it is learnt. This was the first meeting with booth level workers after the defeat in Balurghat in the Assembly elections last year, party leaders said.

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“In today’s meeting, district leaders instructed the workers to increase the political movement and activities in their respective areas,” a leader said. There are 25 wards in the Balurghat Municipality, and the number of booths is 64.

In the last Assembly elections, BJP candidate Dr Ashok Lahiri secured a lead of almost 10,000 votes in the municipality area. The tenure of the elected board in the civic body expired in October 2018, while administrators have been handling matters there ever since.

Opposition party leaders have criticized the state government for not holding the elections that are due, and have demanded immediate polls in civic bodies. In the last municipality elections in Balurghat in 2013, the TMC won a majority of the 25 seats.

However, now due to the absence of an elected board, normal services have been affected and the opposition parties have made this their political agenda for the upcoming municipality elections. “Today, we discussed the present political situation of the state as well as in Balurghat. After the state Assembly elections, this was the first party meeting with booth level workers. As the municipality elections are going to be held within a few months, the polls were also part of our discussions.

After the change in the district TMC committee, we have also decided to meet all booth level leaders and workers in their area. Such meetings are going on for the past one week,” said the district president of the TMC, Ujjal Basak.