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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Susmita Dev elected SMB Chairperson

SILCHAR, Sept 13: As expected, a game of sheer balance between Sontosh Mohan Dev and Dinesh Prasad Goala camps was reached as Vijayendra Prasad Singh, a Hindi-speaking ward commissioner, close to Goala was elected the vice president of Silchar Municipality Board for the first two and half years. Tamal Banik, backed by Dev, would be the Deputy leader for the remaining period. A marathon discussion of the district core committee last night failed to arrive at a consensus on the election of the vice president, though it was a smooth run for Dev’s daughter Susmita for the post of chairman as she was elected unopposed.

Later at a midnight dinner party, all the eight core committee members as well as the elected ward commissioners decided to share the term between Singh and Banik to avoid further dispute. The Congress Board led by Susmita Dev, a practising lawyer, would take oath tomorrow morning at the District Library.

Meanwhile, Manjur Ahmed who won from ward no 8 as an independent candidate joined the ruling party today. Earlier on Saturday, Susmita was declared elected as the leader of the Congress Board Committee comprising of 16 ward commissioners. The decision was taken within a few minutes. The elected members failed to reach at a consensus to decide the deputy leader from among four contestants – Ranjit Roy, VP Singh, Tamal Banik and Mridul Saha. Barring Roy, the three others are new in the field of municipality politics. Chances of Roy were bright, but he had allegedly proposed ‘bribe’ to some of the elected representatives.

On the other hand, Saha faces an arrest warrant for a case that dates back to 1995. Though he was tight-lipped about it, the reports were recently flashed in the media. The chance for Roy and Saha fizzled out and the possibility zeroed in on Singh and Banik. Sources said, Dev did not oppose Singh’s name for the first half with an intention to keep a cordial relation with Goala, which would ultimately smoothen the path for his daughter, sources said. The district Congress president Karnendu Bhattacharjee declared the decision this morning. THE SENTINEL

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