Claiming that the Congress and Left Front activists in the state are switching sides to his party, BJP's West Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh on Tuesday said that the BJP and ruling Trinamool Congress will be the main opposing forces in next year's panchayat elections.
"The way the grass-roots workers from the Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist are joining our party every day, it seems a majority of their candidates who won the last elections will be with us," Ghosh told the media in Burdwan town in West Bengal district of the same name.
"The fight to win the panchayat elections will evidently be between two parties -- the TMC and the BJP. The common people will come under our party's flag and vote for the BJP. They will resist the Trinamool Congress," he said.
Ghosh claimed that the CPI-M and Congress have already lost a lot of political ground in the state, and might even find it difficult to name candidates in all the panchayat seats.
"Even if they manage to file nominations, there won't be enough people to campaign for them," he said.
Talking about Trinamool Congress' overwhelming presence in the last assembly elections, Ghosh said the ruling party might lose it's lustre if some of their leaders, accused in various chit fund scams, get arrested before the panchayat polls.
"No one knows what will be the state of the Trinamool Congress by the time the panchayat elections are held. If two or three of their leaders get arrested, the party may lose its lustre. Who knows if they will be in a position to fight the elections or not," he said.
The state BJP President also held the state government responsible for the recurring incidents of violence against police.
"The police have never been humiliated and heckled in this way. They never had to stoop so low. They are helpless. They are facing the heat due to the lack of governance in the state," Ghosh said, claiming the police won't stand by the ruling party-backed miscreants for long.
--IANS
mgr/ssp/tsb/bg
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)